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Book_J24TS. 



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COFmiGHT DEPOSm 




MAJOR JOHN R. LYNCH 



SOME HISTORICAL ERRORS OF 
JAMES FORD RHODES 



Some Historical Errors 
of James Ford Rhodes 



MAJOR JOHN R. LYNCH 

M 




THE CORNHILL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
BOSTON NEW YORK 



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COPTRIQHT 1922 

Bt TflE CORNHILL PUBLISHING COMPANY 



Printed in the United States of America 

THE JORDAN & MORE PRESS 
BOSTON 



!ll!fcjHL...i.. 



PREFACE 

Those who will do me the honor of reading 
these chapters, and have read, or may hereafter 
read, the " Facts of Reconstruction," will not 
fail to see the fact brought out that, shortly after 
the Democratic victories in the state and Con- 
gressional elections of 1874, a propaganda was 
put on foot to deceive and mislead the pubUc 
with reference to the political situation at the 
South, with a view to shaping and educating pub- 
lic opinion so as to bring about acquiescence in, 
and-i* endorsement of, illegal and questionable 
election methods, in that section. The public 
was to be taught to believe that such methods 
were necessary to prevent " Negro domination." 
The true purpose was not in the interest of " white 
supremacy," but in the perpetuation of the local 
oligarchies which had been brought into existence 
through the adoption and enforcement of methods 
which Mr. Rhodes is pleased to term " regret- 
table." But the real facts are to be carefully 
concealed and never pubUcly revealed. 

The proponents of this propaganda seem to 
have found in Mr. James Ford Rhodes their most 
persuasive and versatile champion and advocate. 
No one can read the chapters in his history cover- 



vi Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

ing the reconstruction period without coming to 
the conclusion that, if what he writes is true, 
poUtical contests in those states at that time 
were not between two pohtical parties but be- 
tween the two races — that the success of one 
party would result in the domination of the 
whites, and the success of the other in the domi- 
nation of the blacks, to prevent which the public 
should acquiesce in, countenance and endorse 
election methods that would otherwise be re- 
pudiated, denounced and condemned. 

The writer of these lines speaks whereof he 
personally knows when he declares that there 
never was the slightest foundation for these alle- 
gations and assertions. That the colored vote 
was at that time, and in a large measure still is, 
a menace to the success of the pohtical party 
with which a majority of the whites of the South 
were and are still identified will not be denied, 
but this was as much from necessity as from 
choice, the opposition of that party to the civil 
and political rights of the colored American con- 
stituting the necessity. But those who are in- 
telligent enough to know the facts and candid 
enough to admit them will not claim that this 
jeopardized the domination of the whites in the 
administration of the government, even in states 
and districts where the blacks were in majority. 
The only line the colored voters ever drew in 
politics was that of party. At least ninety per 



Preface vii 

cent of them voted for the candidates of the Re- 
pubUcan party, white and colored, because they 
were RepubUcans, and against the candidates of 
the Democratic party, white and colored, be- 
cause they were Democrats. They never at any 
time voted for colored men because they were 
colored, and against white men because they 
were white. They not only would not draw the 
race or color line in politics, but they refused to 
discriminate against any one group or class of 
white men. They would not, for instance, re- 
fuse to vote for white men who had been slave- 
owners or Confederate soldiers. Neither would 
they draw the hne against those who were not 
natives or old citizens — in other words, " carpet- 
baggers " — if they were otherwise acceptable. 

Between 1868 and 1874 the race or color line 
in politics was not strictly drawn even by the 
Democratic party, hence colored men were some- 
times nominated for positions of importance by 
the Democrats. The fact was revealed from the 
election returns that the colored candidates re- 
ceived about the same number of votes as their 
white associates, and the white RepubUcan can- 
didates about the same number as their colored 
associates, thus showing that the race identity of 
the opposing candidates did not enter into the 
contests. In speaking of the attitude of the 
colored people of the State of Mississippi towards 
the whites, the Jackson Clarion, the leading 



viii Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

Democratic ~ paper of that state, in a political 
editorial in 1874, said: "While they have been 
naturally tenacious of their newly-acquired privi- 
leges, their general conduct will bear them wit- 
ness that they have shown consideration for the 
feelings of the whites." 

If the race or color line had been drawn by the 
colored voters, as Mr. Rhodes would have his 
readers believe, the above quotation would not 
have been written. Again, if that allegation had 
been true, colored men would have been elected 
to a number of important positions to which white 
men were chosen. No colored man, for instance, 
was ever elected, or even aspired to, the governor- 
ship of any one of the reconstructed states. 
Hon. P. B. S. Pinchback of Louisiana, by virtue 
of the position occupied by him as acting heut.- 
governor, was called upon to serve as governor 
of that state for a brief period, during the suspen- 
sion by the legislature of the governor, and, 
judging from the manner in which the duties of 
the position were discharged during this time, it 
is apparently true that the state would have had 
a much better administration had he been elected 
and served as governor for a full term. Only 
three of the reconstructed states, South Carolina, 
Mississippi and Louisiana, elected colored men to 
the office of Lieut.-Governor, and Mississippi 
did not elect one until 1873. Prior to that 
time only one out of seven state officials in 



Preface ix 

Mississippi had been a colored man. Except 
South CaroUna, on whose Supreme Court bench 
a colored man by the name of Wright served for 
a short time, no colored man ever held a judicial 
position above that of a justice of the peace. 
Mississippi was the only state to send a colored 
man to the United States Senate. Two, Revels 
and Bruce, were sent from that state, but the 
election of Revels was to fill out an unexpired 
term of about fourteen months. He was elected 
by a legislature in which there were about three 
white men to one colored. 

Hon. P. B. S. Pinchback was a senator-elect 
from Louisiana, but since there was some question 
about the legal status of the legislature by which 
he was elected, his right to the seat was con- 
tested. He finally came within one vote of being 
seated. 

Except South Carolina, no one of the recon- 
structed states ever elected more than two colored 
men to Congress at any one time. The largest 
number ever chosen at any one election was in 
1872, when eleven members of that race were 
elected — five from South CaroUna, two from 
Alabama and one each from Louisiana, Florida, 
Mississippi and North Carolina. The other Re- 
pubHcan members from that section, about thirty 
in number, elected chiefly by the votes of colored 
men, were all whites. The allegation that the 
newly enfranchised blacks drew the race or color 



X Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

line in politics is a grave injustice and a cruel 
slander. They never, at any time, manifested 
the slightest desire, or showed the least inclina- 
tion, to dominate, but always to participate. In 
their attitude towards their white fellow citizens 
they never desired to humiliate but always to 
cooperate. In political matters they never de- 
sired to separate themselves from, but rather to 
act in harmony with, the whites who were mem- 
bers of the party to which they belonged. It was 
their aim, purpose and wish to establish and 
maintain friendly, cordial and amicable relations 
with their white fellow citizens. 

When Mr. Revels was sent to the United 
States Senate he carried a petition which had 
been adopted by the legislature that elected him, 
cheerfully concurred in by the colored members, 
asking for the removal of the political disabilities 
which had been imposed by the 14th Amendment 
upon many of the leaders of the late Confederacy. 
In consequence of this pacificatory attitude 
thousands of the best and most substantial white 
men of the South came into the Republican party 
of that section, taking charge and assuming 
leadership of it. One of the number, Ackerman 
from Georgia, was honored with a seat in the 
cabinet of President Grant. Another, Hunt of 
Louisiana, was honored with a seat in the cabinet 
of President Garfield. And but for the agreement 
between Northern Republicans and Southern 



Preface xi 

Democratic congressmen to have the Democratic 
House accept and ratify the findings of the elec- 
toral commission, seating Mr. Hayes as President, 
possibly another one of the number, Ex-Senator 
Alcorn of Mississippi, instead of Ex-Senator Key 
of Tennessee, a Democrat, would have been made 
a member of the Hayes cabinet. 

In view of the many letters of congratulation 
and commendation received from persons of note 
and prominence, I am led to believe that my 
efforts to correct some of the flagrant misstate- 
ments and misrepresentations about the recon- 
struction period have not been wholly in vain. 

To my personal friend, Mr. George A. Myers 
of Cleveland, Ohio, I am especially indebted. He 
is the one that first brought Rhodes's History to 
my notice. He is not only personally acquainted 
with Mr. Rhodes, but sustains pleasant relations 
with him. He was the medium through whom 
the correspondence took place which resulted in 
the preparation of these chapters. He is not 
only a man of marked intelligence, but he is a 
close and diligent student of American history. 

In a letter to me under date of May 22, 1918, 
he said: "Being unfamihar with the real hap- 
penings of those early days, I once wrote Mr. 
Rhodes . . . that the early granting of amnesty 
to the South and the enfranchisement of the 
Negro without an educational quahfication . . . 
were both national mistakes. . . . Had I been 



xii Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

informed as I now am, through your " Facts 
about Reconstruction " and this recent contro- 
versy between you and Mr. Rhodes, I would have 
made no such statement. I write this that you 
may see how one as careful as I am to make 
accurate statements may err by not having 
reUable information." 

Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt of Cleveland, Ohio, 
one of our most widely-known authors, in a letter 
addressed to Mr. George A. Myers dated Decem- 
ber 24, 1917, says: " If Mr. Lynch had never 
written anything else but this article, it would 
stamp him as a man of pronounced ability. His 
points are made clearly and forcefully, and as he 
speaks from first-hand knowledge, they have the 
ring of truth, notwithstanding the suggestion on 
the other side that the memory is apt to be 
treacherous. The expert makes several admis- 
sions, but some of his statements are very vague 
and unconvincing .... Mr. Rhodes has evi- 
dently been fed up with the Southern view-point 
and has adopted it as his own. This seems 
regrettable, inasmuch as a serious historical work 
is likely to be accepted as a true record of past 
events." 

Since this work is in a large measure an amplifi- 
cation of some of the material points brought out 
in " The Facts of Reconstruction," a brief quo- 
tation from a letter written by a gentleman of 
note relative to that work will not be out of place 



Preface xiii 

here. The gentleman referred to is Mr. Frank 
Hamlin, a prominent member of the Chicago 
Bar and a son of Ex- Vice-President Hannibal 
Hamlin. In his letter addressed to the author 
dated June 23, 1916, Mr. Hamlin said: "I have 
read your book ' The Facts of Reconstruction ' 
with the keenest interest and appreciation. In 
this time of gross misrepresentation and exagger- 
ation concerning this particular period, it is a 
matter of much satisfaction to obtain information 
at first hand, from one who has a personal knowl- 
edge of the facts of that particular time. . . . 
Your own views on reconstruction confirm my 
own opinion so strongly in regard to those policies 
that I have taken this liberty of writing you and 
thanking you for expressing them so clearly and 
forcibly. ... I think you have performed a 
public service by placing your statements in 
print, making them a matter of public record 
concerning the days of reconstruction, and I wish 
to express my sincere thanks to you for having 
performed the same." 

The above extracts are taken from only a few 
of the many hundreds of similar letters that the 
author has received from all parts of our country 
and some from abroad. 

In my opinion, what will make this work es- 
pecially attractive is the fact that both sides of 
the matters in controversy are presented under 
one cover. The work is divided into three parts. 



xiv Historical Errors of James Ford RJwdes 

The first is the author's review of that part of 
Rhodes's history which covers the reconstruction 
period, in which many of his errors, misstate- 
ments and misrepresentations are pointed out and 
refuted. The second contains the answer to the 
first, written by an " expert " selected by Mr. 
Rhodes for that purpose. The third is the author's 
reply to that answer. 

The reader will not fail to see that the state 
governments at the South claimed by Mr. Rhodes 
to be the representatives of the restoration of 
home rule were the products of violence and 
force. They were not governments of law, but of 
force; not governments of right, but of might. 
They were not based upon the popular will, but 
the result of a violent suppression of that will. 
Having seized possession of the machinery called 
the state governments vi et armis, they proceeded 
to perpetuate themselves in power by the adop- 
tion and enforcement of various schemes and 
devices of questionable legality and constitution- 
ality, to avoid and prevent an expression of the 
popular will. In other words, to disfranchise, 
through an evasion, if not violation, of the Federal 
Constitution, thousands of persons who would 
otherwise be qualified to vote at all popular 
elections. Since these governments were brought 
into existence through violence and force, and are 
maintained in power through the adoption and 
enforcement of inexcusable and indefensible meth- 



Preface 

XV 



ods, their retrogression, degeneraov .r.A w 
decay must necessanl^r ' ,, ^^^^^^ and ultimate 
rr XI I'^^^essanly lollow m coursp nf +i>^ 

stone upon which pv^r, '''"'^^ "o^er- 

who have faithiL thIZbSr--* "^'^' ^"'^ 
Republican institu ionf 1l ^ ? P*"P«t"ity of 
conunended, wi^ he hoie^hTtt ^ -7^'^''' 
-ful, thou.h«u, and d^hilirrn! 

JOHN R. LYNCH. 



INTRODUCTORY 

In 1916, in glancing over one of the volumes of 
Rhodes's history of the United States, I came 
across the chapters giving information about what 
took place in the State of Mississippi during the 
period of Reconstruction. I detected so many 
statements and representations which, to my 
knowledge, were absolutely groundless that I de- 
cided to read carefully the entire work, which I 
have done; and I regret to say that, so far as the 
Reconstruction period is concerned, the history is 
not only inaccurate and unreliable, but is the 
most one-sided, biased, partisan and prejudiced 
historical work I have ever read. In his preface 
to volume six, the author was frank enough to 
make the following observation: " Nineteen years' 
almost exclusive devotion to the study of one 
period of American history has had the tendency 
to narrow my field of vision." Without doing 
violence to the truth he could have appropriately 
added these words : '' And since the sources of my 
information touching the Reconstruction period 
were partial, partisan and prejudiced, my field of 
vision has not only been narrowed, but my mind 
has been poisoned, my judgment has been warped, 



xviii Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

my deductions have been biased, and my opinions 
so influenced that my alleged facts have not only 
been exaggerated, but my comments, arguments, 
inferences and deductions based upon them can 
have very little, if any, value for historical 
purposes. " 

Many of his alleged facts were so magnified 
and others so minimized as to make them harmo- 
nize with what the author thought the facts 
should be, rather than what they actually were. 
In the first place, the very name of his work is a 
misnomer: " History of the United States from 
the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration 
of Home Rule at the South in 1877," I have em- 
phasized the words, '' to the final restoration of 
home rule at the South in 1877 " because those 
are the words that constitute the misnomer. If 
home rule were finally restored to the South in 
1877, the natural and necessary inference is that 
prior to that time those states were subjected to 
some other kind of rule, presumably that of 
foreigners and strangers, — an inference which is 
wholly at variance with the truth. Another in- 
ference to be drawn is that those states had 
enjoyed home rule until the same was disrupted 
and set aside by the Reconstruction Acts of 
Congress, but that it was finally restored in 1877. 
If this is the inference which the writer intended 
the reader to draw, it is conclusive evidence that 
he was unpardonably and inexcusably ignorant 



Introductory xix 

of the subject matter about which he wrote. As 
the term home rule is generally understood, there 
never was a time when those states did not have 
it, unless we except the brief period when they 
were under military control, and even then the 
military commanders utilized home material in 
making appointments to office. But since the 
officers were not elected by the people, it may be 
plausibly claimed that they did not for that 
period have home rule. But the state govern- 
ments organized and brought into existence under 
the Reconstruction Acts of Congress were the 
first and only governments in that section which 
were genuinely Republican in form. The form of 
government which existed in the ante-bellum 
days was that of an aristocracy. The govern- 
ment which has existed since what Mr. Rhodes 
is pleased to term the restoration of home rule is 
simply that of a local despotic oligarchy. The 
former was not, and the present is not, based 
upon the will and choice of the masses, but the 
former was by far the better of the two, for what- 
ever may be truthfully said in condemnation and 
in derogation of the Southern aristocracy of ante- 
bellum days, it cannot be denied that they repre- 
sented the wealth, the intelligence, the decency 
and the respectability of their respective states. 
While the state governments that were domi- 
nated by the aristocrats were not based upon the 
will of the people as a whole, yet from an admin- 



XX Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

istrative point of view they were not necessarily- 
bad. Such cannot be said of those who are now 
the representatives of what Mr. Rhodes is pleased 
to term home rule. 



SOME HISTORICAL ERRORS OF 
JAMES FORD RHODES 



SOME HISTORICAL ERRORS OF 
JAMES FORD RHODES 

CHAPTER I 

Southern White Republicans 

In volume 7, page 171, Mr. Rhodes says: 
" Some Southern men at first acted with the 
Repubhcan party, but they gradually slipped 
away from it as the color Une was drawn and 
reckless and corrupt financial legislation inaugu- 
rated." That thousands of white men at the 
South who identified themselves with the Repub- 
lican party between 1868 and 1876 subsequently 
left it will not be denied, but the reasons for their 
action are not those given by Mr. Rhodes. In 
fact, there is no truth in the statement about the 
drawing of the color line and very little in the 
one about corrupt or questionable financial legis- 
lation. The true reason for the action of the 
white men referred to will be found in Chapter II 
of " The Facts of Reconstruction," but for the 
information of those who have not seen that 
book the matter will be touched upon and briefly 
explained here. 



4 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

The white men who joined and assumed the 
leadership of the Repubhcan party at the South 
between 1868 and 1876 were among the most 
intelligent and cultivated representative men of 
that section. As a rule they were men who were 
identified with what was known as " Southern 
aristocracy." Such men, for instance, as Ex- 
Governor Orr of South Carolina, Parsons of 
Alabama, Reynolds of Texas, and Brown of 
Georgia. Also such men as Mosby, Wickham, 
and subsequently Mahone, Massey, Paul, Ful- 
kerson and Riddleberger of Virginia. General 
R. E. Lee was known to have leanings in the same 
direction, but since he was not politically ambitious 
his views were not made a matter of public dis- 
cussion. In addition to Ex-Governor Brown of 
Georgia, they included such men as Gen. Long- 
street, Joshua Hill, Bullock and many others of 
like caliber. Even Ben Hill was suspected by 
some and accused by others of leaning in the same 
direction. In Louisiana not less than twenty- 
five per cent of the best and most substantial 
white men of that state became identified with 
the Republican party under the leadership of 
such men as Ex-Governor Hahn and Messrs. 
Hunt (appointed Secretary of the Navy by 
President Garfield), Wells, Anderson, and many 
others. Although he took no active part in 
politics, General Beauregard was known, or at 
any rate believed to be, in sympathy with these 



Southern White Republicans 5 

men and the cause they represented. But it was 
in my own state, Mississippi, where I had an 
intimate knowledge of and acquaintance with the 
soHd and substantial white men who identified 
themselves with the Republican party, and whose 
leadership the newly enfranchised blacks faith- 
fully followed. They included such men as 
James L. Alcorn, elected governor of the state by 
the Republicans in 1869 and to the United States 
Senate by the legislature which was elected at 
the same time. Alcorn was one of the aristocrats 
of the past. He served with Mr. Lamar in the 
Secession Convention of 1861 and was a general 
in the Confederate Army. Mr. Rhodes failed to 
inform his readers of the fact that the Democratic 
candidate for governor against Alcorn, Judge 
Louis Dent, belonged to that much-abused class 
called " carpetbaggers," but who, like thousands 
of others of that class, both Democrats and Re- 
publicans, was a man of honor and integrity. 
The same was true of Messrs. Tarbell, Powers, 
Perce, McKee, Jeffords, Speed, and many others, 
some of whom were Democrats. In addition to 
Alcorn, there was Col. R. W. Flournoy, who also 
served with Mr. Lamar as a member of the Seces- 
sion Convention and who was the Republican 
candidate for Congress against Mr. Lamar in 
1872. Also Judge Jason Niles, who served as a 
member of the State Legislature, Judge of the 
Circuit Court and member of Congress, whose 



6 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

able and brilliant son, Judge Henry Clay Niles, ^ 
is now the United States District Judge for that 
state, appointed by President Harrison. He has 
the reputation of being one of the best and finest 
Judges on the Federal Bench. The state never 
had before, and has not had since, a finer judiciary 
than it had under the administrations of Alcorn, 
Powers and Ames, the three RepubUcan Gover- 
nors. In referring to the three justices of the 
state supreme court Mr. Rhodes made the state- 
ment that eligible material in the Republican 
party was so scarce that, in order to get three 
competent judges, the governor was obliged to 
select a Democrat, which is not true. Chief 
Justice E. G. Peyton and Associate Justice H. F. 
Simrall were both southern RepubUcans. Justice 
Tarbell, though a " carpetbagger," so-called, 
was also a Republican and an able judge who 
enjoyed the confidence and respect of the Bench 
and Bar. When he retired from the Bench he 
was made second Comptroller of the United 
States Treasury. In addition to these able and 
brilliant men, I feel justified in naming a few 
others, such as R. W. Millsaps, in whose honor 
one of the educational institutions at Jackson was 
named; W. M. Compton, T. W. Hunt, J. B. 
Deason, W. H. Vasser, Luke Lea, who was at 
one time United States District Attorney, and his 
son, A. M. Lea, who subsequently held the same 

* Judge Niles has since died. 



Southern White Republicans 7 

office; J. L. Morphis, one of the first Republicans 
elected to Congress; Judge Hiram Cassidy, who 
was the recognized leader of the Bar in the south- 
ern part of the state, and his able and brilliant 
son, Hiram Cassidy, Jr.; also his law partner, 
Hon. J. F. Sessions. Among the circuit and 
chancery court judges there were such jurists as 
Messrs. Chandler, Davis, Hancock, Walton, Smy- 
ley, Henderson, Hill, Osgood, Walker, Millsaps, 
McMillan and Crain — all Republicans, as in 
fact was every judge on the Bench without a 
single exception. In addition to these were 
thousands of others, such as J. N. Carpenter and 
James Surget, men of character, wealth and 
intelligence, who had no ambition for official 
recognition or political distinction, but who were 
actuated by what they honestly believed to be 
conducive to the best interests of their country, 
their state and their section. In fact, the south- 
ern white men that came into the Republican 
party were typical representatives of the best 
blood and the finest manhood of the South, than 
whom no better men ever lived. And yet to 
read what Mr. Rhodes has written one would 
naturally assume that the opposite of this was 
true — that the Republican party in that section 
was under the domination of Northern carpet- 
baggers and a few worthless Southern whites and 
a number of dishonest and incompetent colored 
men. 



CHAPTER II 

Some Mistakes Were Made 

That some mistakes were made during the 
progress of reconstruction cannot and will not be 
denied. No friend and supporter of the Con- 
gressional plan of reconstruction will claim that 
everything was perfect and that no mistakes were 
made. On the contrary, it is frankly admitted 
that a number of grave mistakes and blunders 
were made, but they were not confined to any one 
party. No one party could justly lay claim to 
all that was good or truthfully charge the other 
with all that was bad. Of those who were selected 
as representatives of the parties, the Democrats 
had, in point of experience and intelligence, a 
slight advantage over the Republicans, but in 
point of honesty and integrity the impartial 
historian will record the fact that the advantage 
was with the Republicans. This point will be 
again referred to and will be more fully amplified 
and explained. But, as has been stated, some 
mistakes were made by both parties. How could 
it have been otherwise? The Civil War had just 
come to a close; sectional animosity was bitter and 
intense. The Republican party was looked upon 
as the party of the North, and therefore the bitter 



Some Mistakes Were Made 9 

enemy of the South. The Southern white men 
who joined the RepubUcan party were accused of 
being traitors to their section and false to their 
own race and blood; they were called scalawags. 
Through a process of intimidation, chiefly by 
means of social ostracism, independent thought 
and action on the part of Southern whites, during 
the early period of Reconstruction, were pretty 
effectually prevented. Through such methods 
they were quite successfully held under the sub- 
jection and control of those whose leadership 
they had been accustomed to follow. Under 
such circumstances the reader may ask the ques- 
tion, why was it and how was it that so many of 
the best white men of that section joined the 
Republican party? The answer is that prior to 
the election of Gen. Grant to the presidency in 
1868 very few of them did so. After the election 
of Grant in 1868 the feeling of intolerance some- 
what subsided, resulting in a large number of 
accessions to the Republican party from the 
ranks of the best and most substantial white men 
of that section. But it was not until the re- 
election of Grant in 1872 that political proscrip- 
tion, social ostracism and intolerance completely 
and entirely disappeared. It was then that white 
men came into, took charge of and assumed the 
leadership of, the Republican party in large num- 
bers. They then had nothing to fear and nothing 
to lose by being identified with it. Political 



10 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

proscription and social ostracism had been com- 
pletely abandoned. The South then entered 
upon a new era which was calculated to bring to 
that section wealth and prosperity, with happiness 
and contentment among its people of both races, 
all living under local governments dominated and 
controlled by the better element of native whites, 
with the cooperation, assistance and participation, 
to some extent, of the newly enfranchised blacks. 
All the mischief that had resulted from the policy 
of proscription, intolerance and social ostracism 
was prior to this period. It was during that 
period that thousands of white men were coerced 
into acting with the Democratic party, and the 
colored men, of course, were compelled from 
necessity, if not from choice, to act with the 
Republican party. Very little independent ac- 
tion and voting could be indulged in by either 
race. It was never a question of men; it was 
always a question of party. Under such circum- 
stances thousands of white men were obliged to 
vote for certain Democratic candidates who were 
otherwise objectionable, as against certain Re- 
publicans who were otherwise acceptable. In a 
like manner thousands of colored men were 
obliged to vote for certain Republican candidates 
who were otherwise objectionable, as against 
certain Democrats otherwise acceptable. The 
wonder, therefore, is not that so many, but that 
so few, mistakes were made, — not that so many, 




WILLIAM McCARY 

Sheriff and Tax Collector of 
Adams County, Natchez, Miss., 
from 1874 to 1870. From a photo- 
sraph taken by Major Lynch at 
Natchez, Miss., in 1868. 





Hon. B. K. BRUCE 

Who was Sheriff and Tax Col- 
lector of Bolivar County, Miss., 
when he was elected U. S. Senator, 
in 1874. 



ROBERT H. WOOD 

Sheriff and Tax Collector of 
.\dams County, Natchez, from 
1876 to 1878. 



Some Mistakes Were Made 11 

but that so few, objectionable persons were elected 
to important and responsible positions. The 
writer of this book has always believed it to be a 
misfortune to his race and to the country if con- 
ditions be such as to make it necessary for any 
race or group of which our citizenship is composed 
to act in a solid body with any one political party. 
The writer called attention to this in a speech 
which he delivered on the floor of the National 
House of Representatives over thirty years ago. 
He then made an appeal to the Democrats to 
change the attitude of their party towards the 
colored Americans. While the colored people, 
he said, were grateful to the Republican party for 
their physical emancipation, they would be 
equally grateful to the Democratic party for their 
political emancipation. While he was a Repub- 
lican from choice, he personally knew of many 
members of his race who were Republicans not 
from choice, but from necessity, and that the 
Democratic party was responsible for the exis- 
tence of that necessity. Upon economic questions 
there are differences of opinion among colored as 
well as white persons. It is an injustice to the 
colored race and a misfortune to the country if 
they cannot vote in accordance with their con- 
victions upon such questions. No race or group 
can be true and independent American citizens, 
as all should be, when they are made to feel that 
the exercise and enjoyment by them of their civil 



12 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

and political rights are contingent upon the result 
of an election. It must be said to the credit of 
the late Grover Cleveland that he did all in his 
power, both as governor of his state and as Presi- 
dent of the United States, to bring about this 
necessary change and reform in his party. That 
his efforts were not crowned with success was 
through no fault of his. 



CHAPTER III 

The Type of Men Elected by Colored Voters 

The newly enfranchised blacks at the South, as 
I have endeavored to show, had no other alterna- 
tive than to act with the Republican party. 
That some objectionable persons should have been 
elected by their votes under these conditions 
could not very well be prevented; but the 
reader of Mr. Rhodes's history cannot fail to see 
that he beUeved it was a grave mistake to give 
the colored men at the South the right to vote, 
and in order to make the alleged historical facts 
harmonize with his own views upon this point he 
took particular pains to magnify the virtues and 
minimize the faults of the Democrats and to 
magnify the faults and minimize the virtues of the 
RepubUcans, the colored Republicans especially. 
In vol. 7, page 97, for instance, Mr. Rhodes says: 
" But few Negroes were competent to perform the 
duties; for instance, it was said that the colored 
man who for four years was sheriff of De Soto 
county could neither read nor write. The Negro 
incumbent generally farmed out his office to a 
white deputy for a share of the revenue." The 
above is one of the most barefaced and glaring 
misstatements and misrepresentations that could 



14 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

possibly be made. The reader will notice that 
the allegation is based upon the phrase " it has 
been said "; but if Mr. Rhodes had been anxious 
to record only what was accurate and true, he 
should, as he easily could, have found out just 
what the facts were, as I have done. The facts 
were these: When Tate County was created the 
greater part of the territory composing the new 
county had been taken from the county of De- 
Soto. The then sheriff of De Soto County lived 
in that section which was made a part of the new 
county of Tate. It thus became necessary for a 
new sheriff to be appointed by the governor for 
De Soto County, who could hold office until the 
election of a sheriff at the ensuing election. 
Rev. J. J. Evans, a colored Baptist minister and 
an ex-federal soldier, was thus appointed. Since 
this took place in 1873, the appointment must 
have been made by Governor R. C. Powers, who 
had been elected lieutenant-governor on the 
ticket with Alcorn in 1869 and became governor 
when Alcorn went to the United States Senate in 
1871. Although he was one of those who be- 
longed to the class called " carpetbaggers," 
Governor Powers was known to be an honest and 
upright man, and one who exercised great care in 
all of his appointments. Governor Powers never 
could have been induced to appoint a man sheriff 
of any county who could neither read nor write. 
Mr. Evans discharged the duties of his position 



Type of Men Elected hy Colored Voters 15 

with such entire satisfaction that he was nomi- 
nated by the Republicans and elected to succeed 
himself at the regular election in November, 1873, 
for the full term of two years. In 1875 he was 
re-nominated by his party to succeed himself. 
Mr. Evans's administration had been so satis- 
factory that when the Democratic county con- 
vention met to nominate a county ticket, no 
nomination was made for the office of sheriff. 
But between the nomination and election the 
Democratic organization in the state saw a new 
light. It was decided that the state must be 
" redeemed,^' and that nearly all of the counties 
must be included in that redemption. The Demo- 
cratic executive committee of De Soto County 
was, therefore, directed to meet and complete 
the county ticket by nominating a candidate for 
sheriff, which was done, and the ticket as thus 
completed was, of course, declared elected. De- 
Soto County was " redeemed.''^ It is a fact of 
which Mr. Rhodes may not be aware, that the 
county sheriff in Mississippi is also the county 
tax collector, and as such he is required to give a 
heavy bond. These bonds are usually made by 
property owners of the county, nearly all of whom 
are white men and Democrats. Had Mr. Evans 
been the man described by Mr. Rhodes, he never 
could have qualified for the office. It is also a 
fact of which Mr. Rhodes may be not aware, that 
the county sheriff in Mississippi as the chief 



16 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

executive and administrative officer of his county 
is necessarily obliged, regardless of his own 
qualifications and fitness, to employ a number of 
assistants and deputies to aid him in running the 
office. The number of persons, with the salary 
or compensation of each, is fixed by law or the 
court, and they are paid according to law out of 
money appropriated for that purpose. In mak- 
ing these appointments it is both reasonable and 
natural that the appointing power would favor- 
ably consider a suggestion or recommendation 
from any one of his sureties. At any rate, Mr. 
Evans had the good sense to surround himself 
with honest, efficient and capable assistants. 
He is still Uving at Hernando, De Soto County, 
Miss. As I write these lines an autograph letter 
from him is before me. While it is clear that he 
is not a college graduate, his letter effectually 
disproves the allegation that he can neither read 
nor write. I judge from the contents of his 
letter that there is no truth in the allegation that 
he divided any part of his own compensation with 
any one or more of his assistants. He left the 
office with a spotless record, every dollar of the 
public funds that passed through his hands and 
for which he was liable being honestly and faith- 
fully accounted for. 

But even if Mr. Evans had been the man 
described by Mr. Rhodes, it would have been 
manifestly unfair and unjust to the colored voters 



Type of Men Elected hy Colored Voters 17 

of Mississippi to select him as a typical represen- 
tative of those who were elected to important and 
responsible positions by the votes of colored men. 
Out of seventy-two counties of which the state 
was then composed not more than twelve ever 
had at any one time colored sheriffs, and they 
did not all hold office at the same time. Of those 
who were thus honored the writer of these lines 
was personally acquainted with not less than ten. 
Mr. Evans was one of the few whom he did not 
know personally. If Mr. Rhodes had desired to 
be fair and impartial he would have taken all of 
them into consideration and would have drawn 
an average. But this would not have answered 
his purpose. It would have shown that in point 
of intelligence, capacity, fitness, honesty and 
integrity the colored sheriffs compared favorably 
with the whites. Take, for instance, the county 
of Adams-Natchez, my own home, where two 
colored men at different times held the office of 
sheriff. The first of the two was Wm. McCary, 
who was elected in 1873. He belonged to that 
small class known as free persons of color dicing 
the days of slavery. His father was the leading 
barber of Natchez for white business men, and a 
private school teacher. He taught the children 
of those who were identified with his own class, of 
whom there were quite a number, who enjoyed 
privileges and advantages which were denied the 
children of slaves. His own children, of course, 



18 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

were not neglected. Wm. McCary, therefore, 
had a good Enghsh education. He was also a 
property owner and tax payer. He was one of 
the two colored men who qualified as a surety on 
the bond of the writer of these Unes when he was 
appointed a justice of the peace in 1869. He was 
held in high esteem by the people of the city of 
Natchez and county of Adams, both white and 
colored. Prior to his election to the office of 
sheriff he had served as a member of the board of 
aldermen for the city of Natchez, and also as 
treasurer for the county of Adams, and subse- 
quently as postmaster of Natchez, the duties of 
all of which he discharged with credit to himself 
and satisfaction to the public. In 1876 he was 
succeeded as sheriff by another colored man, 
Robert H. Wood, who in all important particulars 
was about on a par with McCary. He had 
previously served as mayor of Natchez, to which 
position he was elected by popular vote in De- 
cember, 1870. He was serving the people of 
Natchez as their postmaster when he was elected 
to the office of sheriff. 

These men not only gave satisfaction to the 
people whom they served, but they reflected 
credit upon themselves, their race and their 
party, and also the community that was so fortu- 
nate as to have the benefit of their services. 
What was true of those two men was also true, in 
a large measure, of Harney of Hinds, Scott of 



Type of Men Elected by Colored Voters 19 

Issaquena, Sumner of Holmes, and several others. 
But if Mr. Rhodes wanted to be fair and impartial 
and preferred to select but one man as a typical 
representative of those who were elected to such 
positions by the votes of colored men, he would 
have selected B. K. Bruce, who was sheriff of 
Bolivar County when he was elected to the United 
States Senate. Mr. Bruce needs no introduction 
to intelligent and reading Americans. He de- 
veloped into a national character. He reflected 
credit not only upon himself, his race and his 
party, but his country as well. And yet he typi- 
fied in a most preeminent degree the colored men 
who were elected to important and responsible 
positions chiefly by the votes of members of that 
race. 

But the reader of Rhodes's history will look in 
vain for anything that will give him accurate and 
impartial information along these Hues. His 
history, therefore, is remarkable, not only for 
what it says, but for what it leaves unsaid. In 
fact it is plain to the intelligent reader that he 
started out with preconceived notions and ideas 
as to what the facts were or should have been, 
and that he took pains to select such data and so 
to color the same as to make them harmonize 
with his preconceived notions and opinions. 
He thus passed over in silence all facts which 
could not be so distorted as to make them thus 
harmonize. He could find nothing that was 



20 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

creditable or meritorious in the career of any- 
colored member of either house of Congress, not- 
withstanding the favorable impression made and 
the important and dignified service rendered by 
Revels and Bruce in the Senate, and by such 
members of the House as Rainey, Rapier, Elliott, 
Smalls, Cain, Langston, O'Hara, Miller, Cheat- 
ham, White and others. 

The speech of R. B. Elliott in reply to A. H. 
Stephens in the debate on the Civil Rights Bill 
was admitted to be one of the most eloquent and 
scholarly speeches ever delivered in Congress. 
But Mr. Rhodes's preconceived opinions and 
prejudices were so firmly fixed that he was in- 
capable of detecting anything in the acts or 
utterances of any colored member of either 
branch of Congress that deserved to be commended 
or favorably noticed. 

The following is a brief extract from the elo- 
quent speech of Mr. Elliott on the occasion above 
referred to : 

" The results of the war, as seen in Recon- 
struction, have settled forever the political status 
of my race. The passage of this bill will deter- 
mine the civil status, not only of the Negro, but 
of any other class of citizens who may feel them- 
selves discriminated against. It will form the 
capstone of that temple of liberty, begun on this 
continent under discouraging circumstances, car- 
ried on in spite of the sneers of monarchists and 



Type of Men Elected hy Colored Voters 21 

the cavils of pretended friends of freedom, until 
at last it stands, in all its beautiful symmetry and 
proportions, a building the grandest which the 
world has ever seen, realizing the most sanguine 
expectations and the highest hopes of those who, 
in the name of equal, impartial and universal 
liberty, laid the foundation-stone. 

" The Holy Scriptures tell us of an humble 
handmaiden who long, faithfully and patiently 
gleaned in the rich fields of her wealthy kinsman, 
and we are told further that at last, in spite of 
her humble antecedents, she found favor in his 
sight. For over two centuries our race has 
* reaped down your fields,' the cries and woes which 
we have uttered have ' entered into the ears of 
the Lord of Saboath " and we are at last politi- 
cally free. The last vestige only is needed — 
Civil Rights. Having gained this, we may, with 
hearts overflowing with gratitude and thankful 
that our prayer has been answered, repeat the 
prayer of Ruth : ' Entreat me not to leave thee, 
or to return from following after thee, for whither 
thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I 
will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and 
thy God my God; where thou diest I will die; 
and there will I be buried : the Lord do so to me, 
and more also, if aught but death part thee and 
me.' " 



CHAPTER IV 

Conditions in Mississippi 

But to return to Mississippi. The reader will 
remember I have previously stated that in point 
of honesty and integrity the impartial historian 
will record that the advantage was with the 
Republicans. This point I will now more fully 
amphfy. Referring to the political and sangui- 
nary revolution which took place in Mississippi 
in 1875, Mr. Rhodes in vol. 7, page 141, makes 
use of these words: ''Whilst regretting some of 
the means employed, all lovers of good govern- 
ment must rejoice at the redemption of Missis- 
sippi." . . . " Since 1876 Mississippi has increased 
in population and in wealth ; her bonded indebted- 
ness and taxation are low." It is difficult to 
conceive how an intelligent man, claiming to be 
an impartial recorder of historical events, could be 
induced to make such glaring misstatements as 
the above, when he ought to have known that 
just the opposite of what he affirms is true, except 
as to increase in population and wealth. " All 
lovers of good government must rejoice at the 
redemption of Mississippi." Redemption from 
what? The reader is led to believe that the re- 
demption is from bad to good government; from 
high to low taxes; from increased to decreased 



Conditions in Mississippi 23 

bonded indebtedness; from incompetent, ineffi- 
cient and dishonest administration to competent, 
efficient, and honest. Now let us see just what 
the facts were and are. In 1875 there was just 
one state officer to be elected, that of state trea- 
surer, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of 
George H. Holland, who was elected on the ticket 
with Ames in 1873. The Democrats nominated 
Hon. Wm. L. Hemingway of Carroll County, 
whose nomination was favorably received. His 
life had been an open book. He had the reputa- 
tion of being an honest, honorable and upright 
man. In addition, he was identified with that 
wing of his party which was known to be pro- 
gressive, liberal and fair. In the early days of 
Reconstruction the Democratic party in the state 
was sharply divided into two factions. One, the 
major faction, adopted what they termed a 
policy of " masterly inactivity," which meant 
that white Democrats should take no part in the 
organization of a state government under the 
Reconstruction Acts of Congress, with a view of 
making the work of reconstruction as odious, as 
objectionable and as unpopular as possible. The 
other faction believed it to be the duty of the white 
Democrats to take an active part in the forma- 
tion of a state government, elect as many Demo- 
crats to the state constitutional convention of 
1868 as possible, with a view to having a constitu- 
tion framed which would have very few, if any, 



24 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

objectionable clauses. Wm. L. Hemingway was 
one of the latter number, and as such he was 
elected to the constitutional convention of 1868 
from Carroll County. The nomination of Hem- 
ingway for state treasurer by the Democratic 
state convention in 1875 was looked upon as a 
concession to that element of the party. The 
Republicans did not fail to see that in order to 
carry the state they must nominate their strongest 
and best man, even should the election be fair 
and honest, as they hoped would be the case; 
but this hope they had good reason to appre- 
hend would not be fully realized. Capt. George 
M. Buchanan of Marshall County was nomi- 
nated. Buchanan had been a brave and gallant 
Confederate soldier. He had served as sheriff 
of Marshall County for a number of years. He 
was strong, able and popular. He was known to 
be the best fitted and best qualified man for the 
office of state treasurer. With a half-way decent 
election his victory even over so popular a man 
as Wm. L. Hemingway was an assured fact. 
But the Democrats had decided that the time 
had come for the state to be " redeemed," peace- 
ably and fairly if possible, violently and unfairly 
if necessary. With George M. Buchanan as the 
Republican candidate it was necessary for means 
to be employed, the employment of which Mr. 
Rhodes so much regretted, but which he justifies 
because, as he understands it, they were employed 



Conditions in Mississippi 

in the interest of good government, 
true? Let us see. Buchanan, of coi 
clared defeated and Hemingway decla 
Mississippi was thus " redeemed," " f < ..^n all 

lovers of good government must rejoice but Mr. 
Rhodes failed to record the fact that this man who 
was the representative of the redemption of the 
state had been in ojQfice a comparatively brief 
period when the discovery was made that he was 
a defaulter to the amount of $315,612.19. See 
chapter 16 of " The Facts of Reconstruction." 
It would be a reflection upon Mr. Rhodes's intel- 
ligence to assume that he was ignorant of this 
important fact. He must have known it, but to 
make any allusion to it would be out of harmony 
with the purpose he evidently had in view. It is 
safe to assume that if the will of a majority of the 
legal voters of the state had not been violently 
suppressed in the interest of good and honest (?) 
government, but had secured the election of 
George M. Buchanan, the state, while it would 
not have been redeemed, would have been saved 
the loss of $315,612.19. 

The writer of these lines has never beUeved 
that Hemingway was the personal beneficiary of 
this money or any part thereof, but that he was 
the instrument in the hands of others. Still, he 
was the official representative of the redemption 
of the state for which " all lovers of good govern- 
ment must rejoice." 



/ Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

:e was a material increase in the 
and in the wealth of Mississippi 
denied. These two things would 
na,» d even if the state had never been 

redeemer. They were not the result of that re- 
demption, but in spite of it. In fact, there was a 
marked increase in population and in wealth 
before as well as subsequent to the redemption. 
But when the author states that the bonded in- 
debtedness and taxations are low, the impression 
necessarily made, and intended to be made, upon 
the reader's mind is that after the redemption took 
place, and as a result of it, the rate of taxation was 
reduced, the volume of money paid into the 
state treasury annually for the support of the 
government was less than it had been before, and 
that there had been a material reduction in the 
bonded debt of the state; none of which is true. 
See chapter 8 of " The Facts of Reconstruction." 
If Mr. Rhodes had been disposed to record the 
truth and nothing but the truth, which is pre- 
sumed to be the aim of an impartial historian, ht 
could easily have obtained the facts, because they 
are a matter of record. To give the reader an 
idea of what the facts were and are, I will take, 
for purpose of comparison, one example prior and 
one subsequent to the redemption of the state. 

In 1875, the year the redemption took place, 
the assessed value of taxable property was $119,- 
313,834.00. The receipts from all sources that 



Conditions in Mississippi 27 

year amounted to $1,801,129.12. Disbursements 
for the same year, $1,430,192.83. In 1907 the 
assessed value of taxable property was reported 
to be $373,584,960. Receipts from all sources, 
same year, $3,391,127.15. Disbursements, same 
year, $3,730,343.29. The above figures speak 
for themselves. They are from the official rec- 
ords, the accuracy of which cannot be questioned. 
(See chapter 8 of " The Facts of Reconstruction.") 

In reading the chapter to which attention is 
called, the reader will find that during the ad- 
ministration of Governor Ames, which was about 
half over when the redemption took place, the 
rate of taxation had been reduced from seven 
mills to four mills, that a material reduction had 
been made in the bonded debt of the state, and 
that after the redemption took place the tax rate 
was increased from four mills to six mills, and 
that by 1907, $732,890.74 had been added to the 
bonded debt of the state. And yet in the opinion 
of Mr. Rhodes these are conditions, the inaugu- 
ration of which made the employment of regret- 
table means necessary, in regard to which, how- 
ever, " all lovers of good government should re- 
joice," since their employment resulted in the 
redemption of the state. 

But another evidence of Mr. Rhodes's careless 
and reckless manner of stating alleged historical 
facts will be found in a paragraph on page 132, 
volume 7, of his history. In speaking of Gover- 



28 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

nor Ames's unsuccessful efforts to have troops 
sent to the state to assist in maintaining order and 
insuring a fair and peaceable election, he says: 
" A number of the white Republicans of Missis- 
sippi who had quarrelled or differed with Ames, 
among whom were both the United States sena- 
tors, used their influence against the sending of 
federal troops to Mississippi, and none were 
sent." The two United States senators at that 
time were J. L. Alcorn and B. K. Bruce. Bruce 
was a strong friend and loyal supporter of Ames 
and did all in his power to have Ames's request 
granted. This statement is based upon my own 
knowledge. Senator Alcorn was one of the few 
white Republicans who had quarrelled with 
Ames. In fact, he ran as an Independent for 
governor against Ames in 1873. But he was a 
Republican United States senator, and as such he 
had no sympathy with the Democratic party. 
My relations with both senators were cordial. 
If Alcorn had used his influence to prevent having 
federal troops sent to the state, I am sure I would 
have known it. If he raised his voice or used his 
pen for such purpose, that fact was never brought 
to my notice, and I am satisfied it was never done. 
My own opinion is that he remained reticent and 
refused to take sides. The true reason why 
troops were not sent in compUance with the re- 
quest of Governor Ames will be found in chapter 
14 of " The Facts of Reconstruction." 



CHAPTER V 

The Reconstruction Acts of Congress 

" Stevens's Reconstruction Acts, ostensibly in 
the interests of freedom, were an attack on civili- 
zation," vol. 6, page 35. " In my judgment 
Sumner did not show wise constructive states- 
manship in forcing unqualified Negro Suffrage on 
the South," vol. 6, page 40. The truth is 
Stevens and Sumner were wiser than their day 
and generation. They were not favorable to an 
immediate restoration of the states lately in 
rebellion, upon any conditions. They knew that 
after the cessation of hostilities, the flower of the 
Confederate army, an army which it took the 
entire North, with all its numbers, immense wealth 
and almost Umitless resources, four years to con- 
quer, would be at the South, and that upon the 
completion of reconstruction and the withdrawal 
of the federal troops that army could be utilized 
to bring about practically the same conditions 
that existed before the war, hence their opposi- 
tion to immediate restoration. But in this they 
were not supported by popular sentiment, even 
at the North. Popular sentiment did not even 
support them in an effort to give the colored men 
the right to vote, conditionally or uncondition- 



30 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

ally; hence the 14th Amendment was so worded 
as to leave the question of suffrage, subject to 
certain conditions, where it had always been, 
with the several states. 

President Johnson, who contended that the 
rebel states had never been legally out of the 
Union, had proceeded to organize state govern- 
ments at the South upon a plan of his own. The 
principal condition which he exacted of these 
governments was that they should ratify the pro- 
posed 13th Amendment to the Constitution, 
which would legalize and nationalize the Procla- 
mation of Emancipation. But popular sentiment 
at the North demanded something more than this, 
hence the 14th Amendment. It is safe to assume 
that if the Johnson state governments at the 
South had accepted and ratij&ed the 14th Amend- 
ment, the controversy would have ended and no 
further action would have been taken. But that 
Amendment was contemptuously rejected by 
them. Congress, which reflected the dominant 
sentiment at the North, was confronted with a 
grave situation. The fact was soon made clear 
that no governments could be organized in that 
section on a plan different from the one supported 
by the president without giving the colored men 
the right to vote. After much deliberation this 
plan was finally adopted and carried out. This 
is what Mr. Rhodes characterizes as an attack on 
civilization. To what civilization does he refer? 



Reconstruction Acts of Congress 31 

He surely could not have had in mind the civiliza- 
tion which believed in the divine right of slavery 
and which recognized and sanctioned the right of 
one man to own another as his property; yet this 
was the only civilization upon which the Congres- 
sional plan of reconstruction was an attack. 
But for the adoption of this plan and the subse- 
quent legislation of Congress along the same line, 
the abolition of slavery through the ratification 
of the 13th Amendment would have been in name 
only — a legal and constitutional myth. And 
yet this is the civilization, an attack upon which 
Mr. Rhodes so deeply deplores. It is fortunate 
for the country that a majority of Mr. Rhodes's 
fellow citizens did not and do not agree with him 
along these lines. 

Since Stevens and Sumner could not secure the 
adoption of the plan advocated by them, they 
proceeded to secure the adoption of the best one 
possible to obtain under conditions as they then 
existed; hence they insisted, successfully, as was 
then believed, that the legislation, including the 
14th Amendment, should be so framed as not 
only to create national citizenship, as distinguished 
from state citizenship, but that it should be made 
the duty of the federal government to protect its 
own citizens, when necessary, against domestic 
violence, . . . that it should be the duty of the 
federal government to protect them at home as 
well as abroad, hence the closing clause in the 



32 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

14th Amendment, which declares that Congress 
shall have power to enforce the provisions of that 
Amendment by appropriate legislation. 

But, says Mr. Rhodes, the Congressional plan 
of reconstruction was a failure. The defeat of the 
Republican party at the North, especially in 1874, 
he believes " was due to the failure of the South- 
ern policy of the Republican party." In speaking 
of the action of President Hayes, he says: " In- 
deed it was the final admission of the Republican 
party that their pohcy of forcing Negro suffrage 
upon the South was a failure." Is it true that 
Reconstruction was a failure? That depends 
upon the view one takes of it. That some things 
many of its friends and supporters expected of it 
were not fully realized will not be denied; but 
that it was a failure can and will be easily dis- 
proved. Admitting that certain things expected 
of it by friends and supporters of it were not fully 
reaUzed, its failure even to that extent was, in a 
large measure, one of the results, but not one of 
the contributory causes, of the Democratic national 
victory of 1874. The particulars in which the 
hopes and expectations of many of its friends 
were not fully realized will be touched upon and 
explained later. I shall now proceed to show 
wherein that policy was a great and brilliant 
success. 

In the first place, as I have already stated, when 
the split between Congress and President Johnson 



Reconstruction Acts of Congress 33 

took place the fact was soon evident that the en- 
franchisement of the blacks was the only plan 
possible to adopt by which the one advocated by 
the President could be defeated. It was frankly 
admitted that the war for the preservation of the 
Union could not have been brought to a success- 
ful conclusion without putting the musket in the 
hands of the loyal blacks. The fact was now 
made plain that the fruits of the victory won on 
the battlefield could not be preserved without 
putting the ballot in their hands, hence it was 
done. Was it a mistake? Mr. Rhodes says it 
was; but the results prove that it was not. But 
for the enfranchisement of the blacks of the South 
at the time and in the way it was done, the 14th, 
and subsequently the 15th, Amendments to the 
Federal Constitution never could have been 
ratified. 

The ratification of those two Amendments alone 
vindicated the wisdom of that legislation. The 
14th Amendment, among other things, made the 
colored people American citizens. It was, in 
effect, a recall of the famous Dred Scott Decision. 
The 15th Amendment gave the colored American 
access to the ballot-box in every state in the 
Union. The fundamental principles that were 
carried into effect through the Reconstruction 
Acts of Congress were embodied in those two 
Amendments. After the ratification of those 
Amendments, what had previously been local 



34) Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

became national. No state, North, South, East 
or West, can now legally and constitutionally 
make or enforce any law making race or color the 
basis of discrimination in the exercise and enjoy- 
ment of civil and public rights and privileges, nor 
can it make race or color the basis of discrimina- 
tion in prescribing the qualification of electors. 
By the ratification of those Amendments the right 
of an American citizen to the exercise and enjoy- 
ment of civil and political rights and the right to 
vote ceased to be local and became national. 
But it is claimed by some that because the 15th 
Amendment is successfully evaded in some states, 
it is, for that reason, a failure. That point will 
be touched upon and to some extent elaborated 
later. I will state here in passing, however, that 
no law or constitution has ever been made or ever 
can be made that cannot at certain times and in 
some places be successfully evaded. This does 
not necessarily prove that the law or constitution 
in question is a mistake and should, for that 
reason, be repealed. To the extent and for the 
reasons and purposes above stated, the wisdom of 
the Reconstruction Acts of Congress has been 
more than vindicated. 

In addition to what is said above I am satisjfied 
that if the colored men of the South had not been 
enfranchised at this time and this way, but each 
state had been allowed to determine for itself 
whether or not any of the colored inhabitants 



Reconstruction Acts of Congress 35 

thereof should be allowed to vote, as Mr. Rhodes 
thinks should have been done, there would be 
very few states, even now, in which the right to 
vote would be granted to any of the colored in- 
habitants. I repeat, therefore, that if nothing 
else had been accomplished as the result, the 
ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments to 
the Federal Constitution more than vindicated 
the wisdom of that legislation. 

In what, then, was Reconstruction a disappoint- 
ment? I have frankly stated that some of the 
hopes and expectations of a number of the friends 
and supporters of the Congressional plan of re- 
construction have not been fully realized. They 
hoped and beheved, for instance, that when equal 
civil and pohtical rights were conferred upon the 
colored American and he was given access to the 
ballot-box upon the same terms and conditions 
appHcable to whites, he had been clothed with a 
weapon by which he could defend and protect 
himself against wrong and injustice. The dis- 
appointment grows out of the fact that in some 
localities these hopes and expectations have not 
been fully realized. It is safe to assume that if 
Stevens and Sumner had lived long enough to 
witness the final results of that legislation they 
would not be among those who were thus dis- 
appointed, because they foresaw what the final 
result in some instances and in some states might 
be, and therefore advocated the adoption of the 



36 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

necessary means to anticipate them and to pre- 
vent their successful consummation. Since the 
14th Amendment had created national citizenship 
and had incorporated the colored American into 
the body politic of the country, they insisted, 
successfully, upon the enactment of such legis- 
lation as made it the duty of the National ad- 
ministration to protect the individual American 
citizen against domestic violence whenever the 
state in which he might live should fail, refuse or 
neglect to do so. That Congress possessed the 
constitutional right to pass laws for that purpose 
was an interpretation in harmony with the con- 
struction placed upon the 14th Amendment by 
the Republican leaders in and out of Congress, 
which included some of the ablest constitutional 
lawyers our country had produced, some of whom 
had a hand in framing that Amendment. It was 
not only in harmony with the construction placed 
upon the 14th Amendment by the Repubhcan 
leaders, but also by the party itself as expressed 
from time to time in the platforms adopted by its 
national conventions. 

The attitude of the party on this point was 
never more clearly and succinctly set forth than by 
the Chicago Tribune as late as July, 1888, a news- 
paper which then was, and now is, one of the 
strongest and most influential newspapers in the 
country. In its issue of July 3, 1888, that able 
paper defined the attitude of the party upon this 



Reconstruction Acts of Congress 37 

point in these words: " Questions of policy, such 
as the tariff for revenue, are wholly subordinate to 
the cardinal doctrine of Republicanism. That 
the national government is supreme in its juris- 
diction and represents an indestructible union of 
indissoluble states, and as a sovereign power owes 
protection to and claims allegiance from all its 
citizens at home and abroad, is the vital funda- 
mental doctrine of the Republican party." In 
harmony with that construction of the Constitu- 
tion, Congress passed the necessary laws, having 
for their object the protection of individual 
citizens of the United States against domestic 
violence, this power being lodged primarily in the 
president, to be exercised and used by him when- 
ever in his judgment a state should fail, refuse or 
neglect to afford that protection. Under this legis- 
lation the secret and lawless pohtical organization 
known as the Ku Klux Klan was crushed out by 
President Grant, through the successful prosecu- 
tion of many of its leaders in the federal courts 
and through federal machinery. It is claimed by 
some in recent years that the primary purpose of 
this organization was the protection of white 
women against the assaults of vicious colored 
men. But every student of Anaerican history 
knows that this is not true. He knows, on the 
contrary, that it was a secret political organiza- 
tion brought into existence for the sole purpose of 
wresting the state governments at the South 



38 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

from the party then in control of most of them, 
through lawless methods, such as intimidation 
and murder. The protection of women had noth- 
ing whatever to do with it. In fact, the student 
of American history knows that during the Re- 
construction period, and prior thereto, such a thing 
as an assault upon a white woman by a colored 
man seldom, if ever, occurred. While reports of 
that character during the past quarter of a century 
have been largely exaggerated, it is admitted that 
more crimes of the sort have been committed 
during this period than during the preceding 
century. For this there must be a reason. The 
subject is one which has occupied no inconsider- 
able part of my most serious consideration and 
reflection. My conclusions will be given to the 
public through a work which I have in contem- 
plation. But the protection of women was not 
one of the objects and purposes of the Ku Klux 
Klan. 



CHAPTER VI 

States Rights 

That the hopes and expectations of some of the 
friends and supporters of the Congressional plan of 
reconstruction have not been fully realized are due, 
in a large measure, to the reasons given below, and 
they also account for the actions of many Southern 
white men in deserting the Republican party. 
In Mr. Rhodes's opinion one of the reasons for 
Democratic victories at the North, subsequent to 
1872, was due to a conviction in the public mind 
that the Congressional plan of reconstruction was 
a failure. In this I am satisfied he is mistaken. 
As I have already stated, what Mr. Rhodes is 
pleased to term the failiu-e of the Congressional 
plan of reconstruction, but which, in point of 
fact, was not, in its important and essential par- 
ticulars, a failure, was one of the results but not 
one of the primary causes of the national Demo- 
cratic victories in 1874 and subsequent thereto. 
I am satisfied in my own mind that very few men 
at the North who voted the Repubhcan ticket in 
1872, and the Democratic ticket in 1874 were 
influenced in changing their votes by anything 
growing out of, or connected with, the reconstruc- 
tion policy of the government. On the contrary, 



40 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

they regarded that question as having been 
settled, hence they could give their attention to 
other matters. Some things connected with the 
national administration, among them the back 
salary bill and the financial panic of 1873, had 
brought the administration into popular disfavor, 
hence the Democratic victories of 1874. But let 
the reasons be what they may, the results and the 
effect were the same as if the Congressional plan 
of reconstruction had been the sole question upon 
which the people had rendered judgment. After 
the presidential election of 1872 further opposition 
to the Congressional plan of reconstruction had 
been completely abandoned. But after the Demo- 
cratic victories of 1874 a radical change in the 
situation immediately took place. It was then 
determined that the work of redemption should be 
commenced without further delay, and that a 
propaganda should at the same time be organized 
through which the North should be kept misin- 
formed with reference to the actual political 
situation at the South. That the efforts of those 
engaged in this propaganda have not been wholly 
in vain, subsequent events have amply demon- 
strated. But even if popular sentiment through- 
out the country were on the right side of this 
important question, it would ameliorate, but 
would not wholly remedy, the evils complained of, 
as I shall point out later on. I repeat, public 
sentiment can ameliorate, but will not cure, these 



States Rights 41 

evils, on account of several unfortunate decisions 
rendered by the United States Supreme Court, 
the result of two unfortunate appointments to 
seats on the Bench made by President Grant. 
The judges referred to are Waite of Ohio and 
Bradley of New Jersey. Both were supposed to 
be Republicans and beUeved to be in accord with 
the other leaders and constitutional lawyers in 
the Republican party in their construction of the 
war amendments to the Federal Constitution. 
But they proved to be strong States Rights men, 
and therefore strict constructionists. Those two, 
with the other States Rights men already on the 
Bench, constituted a majority of that tribunal. 
The result was that the court declared unconsti- 
tutional and void, not only the National Civil 
Rights Act, but also some of the principal sections 
of the different enforcement acts which provided 
for the protection of individual citizens by the 
national government against domestic violence. 
National citizenship had been created by the 
14th Amendment and the general government 
had been clothed with power to enforce the pro- 
visions of that amendment. Legislation for that 
purpose had been placed upon the statute books, 
and they were being enforced whenever and 
wherever necessary, as in the case of the lawless 
and criminal organization called Ku Klux Klan. 
But the Supreme Court, very much to the sur- 
prise of everyone, steps in and ties the hands of 



42 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

the national administration and prevents any- 
further prosecutions for violence upon the person 
of a citizen of the United States, if committed 
within the limits of any one of the states of the 
Union. In other words, if the state in which a 
citizen of the United States may reside cannot, 
does not or will not protect him in the exercise 
and enjoyment of his personal, civil and political 
rights, he is without a remedy. The result is 
that the general government is placed in the awk- 
ward and anomalous position of exacting support 
and allegiance from its citizens, which are pre- 
sumed to be paramount, to whom it cannot in 
return afford protection unless he should be out- 
side the boundaries of his own country. By 
those unfortunate and fatal decisions the mis- 
chievous doctrine of States Rights, called by some 
state sovereignty, by others local self-government, 
which was believed to have perished upon the 
battlefields of the country, was given new life, 
strength and vitality. The decision declaring 
the Civil Rights law unconstitutional was ren- 
dered by Mr. Justice Bradley, and nearly all of 
those by which some of the principal sections of 
the different enforcement laws were nullified 
were rendered by Chief Justice Waite. 

States Rights, or state sovereignty, has been 
the source and the cause of all of our national ills 
since the foundation of the government. It was 
the chief corner-stone upon which the institution 



States Rights 43 

of slavery rested. It was the cause of the conflict 
between the North and the South, which brought 
on the war of the rebellion. The contention of 
the South was that whatever is sovereign is neces- 
sarily supreme, and since from their point of view 
each and every state was a sovereign body, the 
right of a state to remain in or withdraw from the 
Union could not be denied — a contention which 
would seem to be in perfect harmony with the 
doctrine of state sovereignty, a denial of which 
was a repudiation of that doctrine. Hence it was 
hoped and believed that this vicious doctrine 
came to an end when the surrender took place at 
Appomattox. It was so regarded by its advocates 
and champions at the South, who had decided to 
gracefully accept the situation and govern them- 
selves accordingly, when very much to their 
surprise and gratification the Supreme Court, 
through the dominating influence of Chief Justice 
Waite and Associate Justice Bradley, came to 
their rescue and reaffirmed and re-established, in 
effect at least, the principle and doctrine for which 
they had always contended. 

Just as States Rights had been the cause of all 
our national ills before the war of the rebelHon, 
all our national woes, troubles and misfortimes 
since that time are due to the same cause. It is 
the foundation pillar which supports the so-called 
solid South, the soUdity of which is based, not 
upon the will, but contrary to the wishes of a 



44 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

majority of the people of that section. Those 
unfortunate decisions, some of which were charac- 
terized by the late Justice Harlan as a process of 
judicial legislation, made such conditions possible. 
The reaffirmation of that vicious doctrine is not 
only the foundation upon which the so-called 
solid South is based, which was brought about and 
can be maintained only through a violation or 
evasion of the national Constitution, but it is 
also responsible for lynch law, political proscrip- 
tion, racial discrimination and official segregation. 
In fact, it has a tendency to encourage and pro- 
mote sectional animosity, racial antagonism and 
class discrimination. That the colored American 
has been the principal sufferer during the last 
quarter of a century is merely incidental. Mem- 
bers of that race may be the chief victims today; 
those of another race or group may be the prin- 
cipal victims tomorrow. The mischief grows out 
of the fact that the National Government cannot 
interfere in any event and under any circum- 
stances. States Rights, therefore, means the rule 
of the mob in any state or locality where the mob 
spirit is strong enough to dominate, influence and 
control popular sentiment in that state or locality. 
Take, for instance, the case of Leo Frank in 
Georgia, a Hebrew, but a white man, who was 
generally believed to have been judicially lynched, 
and known to have been physically lynched 
later. Many, if not all, of those who composed 



States Rights 45 

the mob that took this man's Hfe are, no doubt, 
well known to the people of that state and lo- 
cality, yet nothing has been done in the case of 
any one of them, and nothing ever will be done. 
If the governor that commuted the sentence of 
Frank had been lynched, as was threatened, the 
result would have been the same, and if the 
President of the United States had publicly de- 
nounced the crime and had gone to Georgia and 
been lynched, the result would not have been 
materially different, because under the doctrine 
of states rights, each state is a law unto itself, and 
in its sovereign capacity as an independent state 
must be its own judge as to what constitutes law 
within its borders. It may not be in accord with 
what is law in any other state, but that makes no 
difference. What should constitute law in Geor- 
gia is Georgia's business, and any interference by 
outsiders is a violation of the sacred prerogatives 
of the sovereign state of Georgia, and therefore 
cannot be tolerated. This is the principal reason 
why popular sentiment in the country as a whole 
may ameliorate, but cannot remedy, the evils 
complained of. 



CHAPTER VII 

Why White Men at the South Left the 
Republican Party 

The true reason, therefore, why so many white 
men at the South left the Repubhcan party may 
be stated under three heads. First: The Demo- 
cratic victories of 1874, which were accepted by 
Southern Democrats as a national repudiation of 
the Congressional plan of reconstruction. Second : 
The closeness of the presidential election of 1876, 
and the bargain made and entered into between 
the Hayes Managers and Southern Democratic 
members of Congress by which the South was to 
be turned over to the Democrats of that section 
in consideration of their giving consent to the 
peaceable inauguration of Hayes. Third: The 
decisions of the Federal Supreme Court above 
referred to, by which the doctrine of States 
Rights was given new life, strength and vitality. 
It is true there are some men whose party affiUa- 
tions are based upon principle and conviction, 
regardless of consequences personal to them- 
selves. Occasionally some are found who are 
even willing to be martyrs, but they are excep- 
tions to the general rule. The average man is 
politically ambitious. He desires pohtical dis- 



Republican Party m the South 47 

tinction and official recognition. In determining 
his party affiliations, therefore, he is more than 
apt to cast his lot with the party through which 
he believes that ambition may be gratified. 

After the consummation of the events above 
referred to, the conviction became settled in the 
minds of white men at the South that the Demo- 
cratic party in that section would be, for a genera- 
tion at least, the only channel through which it 
would be possible for any one to have his political 
ambition gratified, hence thousands of those who 
had previously joined the Republican party 
returned to the Democratic, since that party 
presented the only hope for their future pohtical 
ambitions. 

I hope the readers of these pages can now see 
why thousands of white men at the South who 
joined the RepubHcan party between 1868 and 
1876 afterwards left that party and became 
identified with the Democratic party. I trust I 
have made it clear that the reasons given by Mr. 
Rhodes are not the true ones. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Solid South 

Notwithstanding what has been said, the solid 
South of today is not the national menace that it 
was forty years ago, because at that time it in- 
cluded the border states of Delaware, Maryland, 
West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, which 
states were then as reliably Democratic, even in 
presidential elections, as the states of Texas and 
Georgia. Such is not true of them now. Whilst 
three of them went Democratic at the presidential 
election of 1916, not one of them should be in- 
cluded in what now constitutes the solid South. 
But if it took forty years for the development of 
the slight change in the border states named 
above, it will take, under like conditions, about 
one hundred years more for the same progress to 
be made in the states which now comprise what is 
called the " solid South." The truth is that the 
solid South could have been, and would have been, 
long since a thing of the past but for the fact 
that the national Republican party has lacked 
the courage of its convictions in dealing with the 
situation. It has not only failed to meet bravely 
the issue thus involved and denounce and oppose 
the methods that have been adopted and en- 



The Solid South 49 

forced with the purpose of violating and evading 
the war amendments to the Constitution, but it 
has acquiesced in them, indirectly at least, as, 
for instance, in the change that was made in the 
basis of representation in the national conven- 
tions of the party, which resulted in reduced 
representation from the states in which the 
colored vote is suppressed. To the reduced 
representation per se there can be no objection. 
The objection is not to the result, but to the 
method adopted to bring it about, making the 
party vote, as per the official returns, the basis of 
representation. No plan could be adopted that 
would be sectionally more inequitable, unjust and 
unfair than this. So far as the South is con- 
cerned, it is equivalent to an acceptance and en- 
dorsement of the methods that have been adopted 
in some of those states to exclude the colored men 
from the ballot-box. Since representation in 
national conventions prior to this last change was 
based upon the state's representation in Congress, 
it necessarily follows that if the representation in 
Congress from those states were reduced in the 
manner prescribed by the 14th Amendment, the 
representation in the national conventions of the 
party would be reduced as a result, to which no 
objection would be made. But making the party 
vote the basis of representation will prove to be 
unsatisfactory, inequitable and sectionally un- 
just, even if no state violates or evades the 15th 



50 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

Amendment. There are some states, for example, 
in which women vote. This is Hkely to produce 
sectional inequality, which cannot be other than 
unsatisfactory. Then again, the question with 
which the party will find itself confronted is, 
what is the party vote? In the presidential 
election of 1916, according to the official returns, 
thousands of Republicans, especially in California, 
Kansas and Minnesota, must have voted the 
national Democratic ticket and the local Repub- 
lican ticket. On the other hand, thousands of 
RepubUcans in the State of Illinois must have 
voted the Democratic local ticket and the Repub- 
lican national ticket. Any plan under the exist- 
ing apportionment that may be adopted must be 
uniform, therefore arbitrary and consequently 
unsatisfactory. The change in the basis of 
representation was unfortunate and unwise. It 
is safe to assume that the change never would 
have been made but for the apparent sectional 
inequality in representation resulting from the 
suppression of the colored vote at the South. 
The change was equivalent to an acquiescence in 
the methods by which that vote is suppressed, 
rather than a strong and vigorous condemnation 
and denunciation of them. 

With reference to the political situation at the 
South, popular sentiment at the North has been 
radically wrong for a number of years. That 
sentiment is fairly and clearly expressed in the 



The Solid South 61 

following paragraph, taken from the leading 
political editorial which appeared in the Chicago 
Tribune in its issue of November 16th, 1916: 
" We are for having the South attend to its local 
political affairs as it sees fit. We concede the 
South the right to protect white domination. 
The Negro en masse is unfit to rule the South, and 
if the only fashion in which he can be kept from 
ruling is to keep him from voting, then keep him 
from voting." That the Tribune reflects, in the 
above, the dominant sentiment of the North at 
this time, and what it has been for a number of 
years, is, I think, unfortunately true. The reader 
will remember that I have made a quotation 
approvingly from the same paper, but that was 
what the Tribune thought and said in 1888. The 
Tribune of 1916 is not the Tribune of 1888. Still, 
it is a strong, able and influential paper. It 
wields, no doubt, a great and wonderful influence 
in molding and shaping popular sentiment in the 
territory in which it circulates. That such an 
influential journal should be so radically wrong 
upon this vital and important national question 
is a great misfortune. The views entertained by 
the editor of the Tribune are not, I am sure, based 
upon his own knowledge and experience; but they 
are based upon what he has read, chiefly from such 
works as Rhodes's history, for no one can read 
what is therein recorded and accept the same as 
accurate and authoritative without coming to 



52 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

the same conclusions as those expressed by the 
Tribune. I give the editor of the Tribune credit 
for being honest and sincere in the beUef that if 
the colored vote were not suppressed, " Negro 
domination " would be the result in states and 
districts in which the blacks outnumber the whites. 
Even if this were true, if he were actuated by that 
sentiment which should actuate every true Ameri- 
can citizen, he would be opposed to the inaugura- 
tion of any extraneous or questionable methods 
to defeat and prevent it. The true spirit which 
should actuate and control every law-abiding 
American is the faithful execution and enforce- 
ment of every law, while it is law whether it be 
good or bad, wise or unwise. If a law is found to 
be bad or unwise, it is far better that it be repealed 
than violated. 

But the editor of the Tribune is mistaken in 
assuming that " Negro domination " would be 
the result in any state or district if the colored 
vote were not suppressed. His conception of 
" Negro domination " is different from that 
entertained by the representatives of the southern 
oUgarchy. What the editor evidently had in 
mind is the actual physical domination of the 
blacks in local administration. This is incorrect. 
What is meant by " Negro domination " at the 
South is the election, for instance, of one white 
man over another, to whose election the colored 
vote may have contributed. In other words, 



The Solid South 53 

whenever the choice of a majority of the whites is 
defeated by the votes of colored men, the man 
thus elected, though a white man, represents 
" Negro domination." If, for instance, the editor 
of the Tribune happened to be a citizen of South 
Carolina and nominated by the RepubHcan party 
of that state for governor, and if all of his associates 
on the ticket should be members of the same race 
and of his own personal selection, the same 
methods would be employed to defeat that ticket 
as would be employed if the ticket were made up 
exclusively of colored men. Why? Because its 
election would result in the defeat of the wishes 
of a majority of the white men of the state, and 
this would mean " Negro domination." What is 
true of the state locally is true of the country 
nationally. Hence the same methods which 
would be used to defeat the Republican ticket in 
the state, even should all of its candidates be 
reputable white men, would be used to defeat the 
Republican candidate for President of the United 
States, and for the same reasons. The masses of 
Southern whites have been taught to believe that 
the Republican party, nationally and locally, or 
any other party, for that matter, which may be in 
opposition to the Democratic party, is the anti- 
white party, while the Democratic party is the 
white man's party. 

In the presidential campaign of 1916, the 
Tribune strongly and ably supported Judge 



54 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

Hughes, the Republican candidate for President. 
After the election it bitterly denounced the solid 
South for being solid in national elections, and 
yet it supports, defends and endorses the methods 
by which that solidity was brought about and is 
maintained. This is inconsistent. As long as 
the Tribune entertains the views to which expres- 
sion is given in the paragraph above quoted, it 
should not criticise and find fault with the fruits 
of its own teachings. It is strange and inexpli- 
cable that intelhgent and well-informed men like 
the editor of the Tribune, Ex-President Taft, 
Senator Borah and thousands of others cannot 
see that this is not a racial but a political question 
— that it is not a contest between races but be- 
tween parties. But as long as such men can be 
deceived, thus causing popular sentiment to 
excuse, justify and tolerate methods that would 
otherwise be condemned, just so long will the 
conditions of which they complain continue to 
exist. As I have already pointed out, popular 
sentiment will ameliorate, but, owing to the 
resuscitation of the doctrine of States Rights, 
cannot eradicate, the evils of which complaint is 
made. 

If in every Southern state today no attempt 
were made to violate or evade the 15th Amend- 
ment, and colored men were allowed free and un- 
restricted access to the ballot-boxes and their 
votes were fairly and honestly counted, there 



The Solid South 65 

would be no more danger of " Negro domination " 
in any one of these states than there is of female 
domination in states where women have the right 
to vote. All that colored men have ever insisted 
upon was to participate — not to dominate — 
not to rule, but to have a voice in the selection of 
those who were to rule. In view of their numeri- 
cal strength the probalities are that more of 
them would be officially recognized than in other 
sections of the country, but never regardless of 
their fitness and capacity, unless there should be 
a repetition of conditions that existed in the early 
days of Reconstruction, which is improbable. 
The dominant element in the Democratic party 
in that section at that time adopted, as I have 
already stated, what was called the policy of 
" masterly inactivity," which was intended to 
prevent white men, through threats, coercion, 
and intimidation, from taking any part in the 
organization and reconstruction of the state 
governments, with a view to making the govern- 
ments thus organized as odious and as objection- 
able as possible. In other words, to make them, 
in point of fact, " Negro governments." This 
pohcy proved to be somewhat effective in many 
localities. Consequently, the colored men found 
much difficulty in finding desirable white men 
outside of the Democratic party for the different 
positions at their disposal, which made it neces- 
sary in some instances for colored men to be 



56 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

selected to fill positions for which white men 
would have otherwise been chosen. But under 
the present order of things a repetition of any- 
thing of this sort would be wholly out of the 
question. 

That so many intelligent people at the North 
should be so easily deceived about the situation 
at the South is almost incomprehensible. Even 
so astute a statesman as the late James G. Blaine 
was a victim of the same delusion. He believed, 
in the first place, that from a standpoint of 
gratitude for his action in defeating the Federal 
Elections Bill of 1875, and his friendly interest in 
certain Democratic leaders from the South, 
notably Mr. Lamar of Mississippi, that even as 
the candidate of the Republican party for the 
Presidency of the United States he would get fair 
treatment at the South. He lived long enough to 
see and acknowledge his mistake. In the second 
place, his idea was that the Republican party had 
nothing to fear from a solid South, because in his 
opinion a solid South in support of the Democratic 
party would produce a solid North in support of 
the Republican party. While it is true that the 
vote of the South has not been decisive in any 
presidential election since 1884, when Mr. Blaine 
was himself the victim of his own delusion, until 
1916, Mr. Blaine ought to have had sagacity and 
foresight enough to see that to maintain a solid 
North in support of the Republican party was 



The Solid South 57 

wholly out of the question, for the reason that the 
people of that section are free and independent 
and think, speak and act for themselves. Conse- 
quently they are not only open to reason, argu- 
ment and persuasion, but they are hkely to change 
their opinions and their votes in accordance with 
changed conditions that may take place from 
time to time. Not so with the South. In that 
section party affiliation is largely the result of 
habit, custom and tradition. Like property, it is 
in most instances a matter of inheritance. The 
masses of the white men are Democrats, not 
because of convictions based upon their own study 
and investigation, but because it is the custom of 
the section in which they live. To be anything 
else they would be out of touch with their neigh- 
bors, friends, associates and companions. Some 
of them attend poHtical meetings, not for infor- 
mation or instruction, but for diversion and 
amusement, and sometimes to satisfy curiosity. 
Sometimes a man who may be out of harmony 
with the local order of things will give expression 
to his views in conversation, but his case is one 
of such isolation that no serious account is made 
of what he may say, especially if no effort is made 
by him to bring about organized opposition to 
existing local conditions. The machine is usually 
in the hands of trained and experienced persons 
who will not tolerate serious nor effective opposi- 
tion from any quarter. They attach no impor- 



58 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

tance to platform declarations, local, national or 
otherwise, nor to the personnel of opposing candi- 
dates. They are for the party and the candidates 
to which the local machine may belong, it matters 
not what the platform may declare or the candi- 
dates may say. That the national Democratic 
party is the beneficiary of their partiality and 
support is merely incidental. If they were 
called upon to choose between the national 
Democratic organization and what they call 
" local self-government " they would choose the 
latter. This is the altar upon which Samuel J. 
Tilden was sacrificed in 1877. 

In writing these lines I do not wish to create 
the impression that there are no white men at the 
South who are independently inclined and who 
are not disposed to rebel against the local oppres- 
sion to which they are now subjected. On the 
contrary there are many thousands of them, but 
as long as influential papers like the Chicago 
Tribune support and defend the methods by 
which they are held in political subjection, they 
can do nothing. Their hands are tied, their lips 
are sealed and their voices are hushed. All they 
can do is to remain quiet and bide their time. 
At present they have no incentive to make a 
break. They know that under existing conditions 
the effort would be useless and nothing can be 
accomplished. The Tribune and other influential 
papers may eventually see their mistake and take 



The Solid South 59 

a position through which a popular sentiment 
will be created throughout the country that will 
result in liberating the conservative white men of 
the South from the political bondage to which 
they are now subjected. The Tribune bitterly 
complains about the solidity of the South in 
national elections. It declares that so far as 
that section is concerned the presidential election 
of 1916 was decided in 1865. That is true; and 
if popular sentiment at the North remains what 
the Tribune represents it to be, the same will be 
true of the South for at least the next century. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Difference Between Southern and 
Northern White Men. 

As political strategists the Northern white man 
is not the equal of his Southern brother. The 
average Northern white man has his heart set 
upon the accumulation of wealth, to which he 
subordinates everything else, politics not ex- 
cepted. The average Southern white Democrat 
has his heart set upon obtaining and retaining 
control of the machinery of government, state 
and national, to which he subordinates everything 
else, the accumulation of wealth not excepted. 
He is not very much concerned about the means 
to be used and the methods to be employed. It 
is the results politically about which he is con- 
cerned and in which he is interested. This fact 
has been clearly estabhshed through his willing- 
ness to run the risk of having the producers of the 
only wealth and prosperity possible for him to 
possess demoralized and driven out of many 
parts of that section, simply because he finds this 
mythical race question to be his best paying 
political asset. As long as the political agitator 
finds this question can be successfully utilized to 
enable him to secure political distinction and 



Southern and Northern White Men 61 

official recognition he will continue to utilize it, 
regardless of the consequences that may follow 
in other directions. 

The South is the natural home of the average 
colored American. He would rather live there 
than in any other section of the country. Its 
climate and soil are better adapted to his wants 
and needs than that of any other section. He 
knows more about producing cotton, corn and 
sugar than he does about producing wheat, rye 
and oats. He prefers to remain at the South, 
but he wants to feel and to know that in the en- 
joyment of life, liberty and property he has the 
protection of society and the law, and that he is 
permitted to have a voice in the government 
under which he lives and byj which he is taxed. 
He wants to feel and to know that his presence 
is not utilized for purposes of political exploitation. 
He is willing to have his presence utilized as a 
commercial, but not as a political asset. The 
colored American will remain at the South unless 
he finds that by going elsewhere he can improve 
and better his condition financially and other- 
wise and escape from outrage and oppression. 
But the average Southern political agitator finds 
this mythical race question has served his purpose 
for such a long time that he is not disposed to 
abandon it. In fact he will never abandon it 
as long as it can be made to answer his selfish 
purposes. 



62 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

During the last forty years he has been quite 
successful, through a well-directed and organized 
propaganda, in shaping popular sentiment at the 
North by appealing to the Northern white man's 
sympathies on the one hand and to his timidity 
and financial interests on the other. During that 
period he has been fairly successful in impressing 
the fact upon the mind of the Northern white 
man that it is to his financial interest to let the 
South have its own way and do what it pleases in 
the management and conduct of its local affairs, 
even at the risk of having that section placed in 
control of the national government. 



CHAPTER X 

Some of the Republican Party's Mistakes 

The trouble with the RepubUcan party is that 
during this important period it has lacked the 
courage to meet bravely this vital and important 
question. This unfortunate fact was brought to 
a painful climax during the administration of Mr. 
Taft, whose Southern policy was an abject, com- 
plete and unconditional surrender to the Southern 
oligarchies, including the elimination of the colored 
American as a political factor. Of all the experi- 
ments that had been tried looking to the dissolu- 
tion of the soUd South, this one was the most 
indefensible and inexcusable. Mr. Taft's idea 
seems to have been that it was only necessary to 
convince the South that the sole difference be- 
tween the two major parties was that one stood 
for a Uttle higher rate of duty on foreign imports 
than the other: that in all other respects the two 
parties stood practically for the same things, and 
that so far as the colored American was concerned 
the South had no more to fear from Republican 
than from Democratic success. The thought 
never seems to have occurred to Mr. Taft that 
there are thousands of citizens who have acted 
with the Republican party and supported its 
candidates, not on account of the attitude of the 



64 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

party on the tariff question, but in spite of that 
fact — not because they were in accord with the 
party on that question, but because the party 
stood for national supremacy, human rights and 
manhood suffrage. This was clearly and dis- 
tinctly set forth by the Chicago Tribune in its 
issue of July 3, 1888, quoted above. As long as 
the party was sound along those hues it could 
safely count upon the loyal support of that large, 
important and influential element, regardless of 
its position and attitude upon other questions and 
issues, because the principles and doctrines thus 
defined they deemed to be paramount. But 
when they were abandoned and repudiated by 
Mr. Taft, his administration and the party which 
he represented had no further claim upon their 
loyalty and support. It is, therefore, not at all 
surprising that such a weak and spineless adminis- 
tration should fail to command and receive public 
support. 

Then, again, it seems never to have occurred to 
Mr. Taft that there was not a particle of sincerity 
in the alleged apprehension of " Negro domina- 
tion." If he had been a diligent student of the 
political history of his country he would have 
known that this was a mere pretext and excuse 
used for purposes of deception. Very few believed 
that a man of Mr. Taft's intelhgence could be 
thus deceived ; hence his opponents smiled at his 
credulity and rejoiced at his political calamity. 



Republican Party's Mistakes 65 

What he intended as a concession was accepted as 
evidence of weakness, which was true. Since the 
presence of the colored man in politics was not the 
cause of the evils complained of, his pohtical 
elimination, of course, would not remedy them. 
But even if it had been otherwise, Mr. Taft's 
course would still have been reprehensible and 
inexcusable. He should have gone into office 
with a fixed determination that the Constitution 
and laws should be obeyed and enforced, that the 
rights and privileges of American citizens should 
be protected as far as this could be done by the 
chief executive, both at home and abroad, and 
without regard to differences of race, color, 
nationality or religion, and that in making ap- 
pointments to office, instead of declaring that no 
member of any one particular race or group would 
be recognized or considered if members of another 
race or group objected (thus giving national 
sanction, aid and encouragement to racial dis- 
crimination and segregation), he should have 
made it known that the door of hope and of 
opportunity would be closed against no American 
citizen on account of race, color, nationality, 
section or religion, but that all would be con- 
sidered upon the basis of efficiency, experience, 
ability and integrity. In that event his adminis- 
tration would have gone down in history as one 
of the strongest and best with which our country 
had been blessed. 



CHAPTER XI 

How TO Remedy Existing Evils 

But how and in what way are the existing evils 
to be remedied? The Chicago Tribune clearly 
points them out — the evils, but suggests no cure. 
As long as it adheres to the position stated in its 
editorial of November 16, 1916, quoted above, 
and popular sentiment at the North supports 
and sustains the same, there can be no remedy 
and it is useless to complain. Those who suggest 
a repeal of the 15th Amendment as a cure simply 
show their lack of intelligent comprehension of 
the situation. The repeal of that Amendment 
would not only fail to modify and improve the 
situation, but would magnify and intensify it. In 
the first place, there are very few states in which 
any effort is made to evade the 15th Amendment 
by legislative enactment or constitutional provi- 
sion, but if the Amendment were enforced in 
those states what remains of the solid South 
would be a thing of the past. As political parties 
are now, the States of Mississippi, Louisana and 
South Carolina, with twenty-nine electoral votes, 
would be, especially in national elections, as 
reliably RepubUcan as the State of Vermont, 
whilst Alabama and Florida would be close and 



How to Remedy Existing Evils 67 

doubtful, with chances in favor of the same party. 
But the principal reason why the abrogation of 
the 15th Amendment would not remedy existing 
evils is because representation in Congress, and 
consequently in the electoral college, is based 
not upon votes or voters but upon population. 
It is, therefore, the physical presence of the 
colored man at the South, and not his participa 
tion in poUtics or in elections, that gives that 
section a representation in Congress and in the 
electoral college out of proportion to its voting 
strength as revealed by election returns. It will 
be seen, therefore, that the abrogation of the 
15th Amendment would afford no relief whatever 
from the evils of which complaint is so justly 
made. But there are those who profess to beUeve 
that if the 15th Amendment were repealed the 
fear of " Negro domination " would disappear 
and then white men at the South would divide on 
economic questions as they do at the North, 
hence the South would no longer be solid in the 
support of any one party. Those who thus 
believe are unpardonably ignorant of the South- 
ern political situation. If that impression had 
been well founded it would have developed under 
the administration of Mr. Taft. Again, let us 
take the State of Mississippi, in which the 15th 
Amendment has been successfully evaded for the 
last quarter of a century. During that period 
there has been no more danger of " Negro domi- 



! / 



68 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

nation " there than in the State of lUinois, and 
yet this mythical race question is the only one 
that is ever considered or discussed in Mississippi. 
They know very little about the tariff and care 
less. They are not interested in that or any other 
economic question; what they are interested in 
and concerned about is control of the machinery 
of government, state and national. Why, then, 
should they consider and discuss what to them 
are extraneous matters when the mythical race 
question will answer their purpose? And it will 
continue to answer their purpose as long as 
popular sentiment at the North remains what it 
is — as long as papers like the Chicago Tribune 
continue so to mold and shape popular sentiment 
at the North as to cause it to sanction and ap- 
prove the extraneous and questionable, if not 
illegal, methods that have been adopted in several 
states at the South to suppress the colored vote. 
No, it is the presence of the colored man, even in 
these states, as a prospective voter that gives the 
white men who are independently inclined their 
only hope of future deliverance from political 
tyranny and oppression. White men of that 
class (and they are among the best in that section), 
are now quiet and inactive and will remain so 
until there comes a radical change in popular 
sentiment throughout the country. Just as soon 
as they can see a reasonable prospect of deliver- 
ance from poUtical oppression they will strike the 



How to Remedy Existing Evils 69 

blow, knowing that they can depend upon the 
loyal co-operation and support of their fellow 
colored citizens. Repeal the 15th Amendment, 
and this prospect and this hope will be forever 
destroyed. Yes, the colored people of that sec- 
tion will cheerfully co-operate with and support 
the better element of the whites in any movement 
they may make to bring about deliverance from 
the local tyrannical oppression to which they are 
now subjected. They have done so in the past. 
They will do the same thing in the future. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Supreme Court Decision 

Already the liberal element among the whites 
at the South sees a ray of hope in the decision of 
the United States Supreme Court by which the 
different schemes to evade the 15th Amendment 
are declared unconstitutional and void. The 
present court has no doubt seen some of the bad 
effects of previous decisions rendered by that 
tribunal and are now disposed to remedy some of 
them by placing a more liberal construction upon 
the war Amendments to the Constitution. But 
let the reasons be what they may, the effect of 
the decision is beneficial and encouraging. No 
immediate results, of course, will follow, but it 
has prepared the way for future union, co-opera- 
tion and fusion of the better element of the two 
races at the South, which will ultimately result in 
the restoration of representative government 
there. In the meantime, if the North wants to 
remedy the existing evils of which it so justly 
complains, it must recognize the fact that this is 
not only a legal but also a great moral question, 
in the settlement of which there can be no com- 
promise and no middle ground. It must insist 
that the Constitution and laws be enforced, re- 



The Supreme Court Decision 71 

spected and obeyed. It must cease to approve, 
justify, tolerate and excuse questionable methods 
for the suppression of the colored vote upon the 
absurd and ridiculous plea that they are neces- 
sary to prevent " Negro domination." Will the 
North have the courage to take this stand? 
Perhaps it will, but I fear not. If not, all com- 
plaints and faultfinding about the solid South 
may as well cease, for under present conditions no 
material change may be expected for an indefinite 
period. 



CHAPTER XIII 
The Mississippi Constitution of 1890 

Mr. Rhodes may contemplate bringing his 
history down to a period subsequent to " the 
restoration of home rule at the South in 1877." 
To enable him to be more accurate in what he may 
write about the State of Mississippi I will take the 
liberty of recording a few facts bearing upon this 
subject. 

Mississippi was the first state that invented a 
scheme to disfranchise the colored men through 
an evasion of the national Constitution. It was 
done in the fall of 1890, through the medium of a 
constitutional convention. The better and more 
liberal element of the Democratic party of the 
state, under the leadership of United States 
Senator E. C. Walthal, was opposed to the pro- 
posed constitutional convention. That element 
contended that the constitution that was framed 
in 1868 and ratified in 1869, the Reconstruction 
constitution, was an excellent document, and that 
the amendments and changes desired were not 
sufficient to justify the calling of a convention to 
frame a new organic law for the state. But the 
radical element, under the leadership of United 
States Senator J. Z. George, was successful and 



Mississippi Constitution of 1890 73 

the convention was held. Senator George had 
himself nominated and elected a delegate from 
the state at large. Wlien the convention met, the 
fact appeared that the delegates were divided 
into two strong and hostile factions, one under 
the leadership of Senator George, who insisted 
upon the adoption of the scheme of which he was 
the author, called the " Understanding Clause," 
the purpose of which was to evade the 15th 
Amendment to the Federal Constitution — to do 
indirectly that which could not be done directly. 
The other faction was under the able leadership of 
Judge J. B. Christman, of Lincoln County, who 
insisted upon the adoption of a plan of which he 
was the author, that there be established an 
honest educational qualification as a condition 
precedent to voting, the same to be applicable to 
both races alike. Strong and able arguments 
were made for and against both plans. Many 
able lawyers agreed with Judge Christman in the 
opinion that the George plan would not stand the 
test of a judicial interpretation, while no one 
questioned the constitutionality of the plan pro- 
posed by Judge Christman. Under the Christ- 
man plan illiterates of both races would be ex- 
cluded, whilst the George plan was so worded as 
to put it in the power of those in control of the 
election machinery to exclude the illiterates of 
one race without excluding those of the other. It 
looked for a while as if the Christman plan would 



74 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

be adopted, but the supporters of the George 
plan were desperate and determined. The presi- 
dent of the convention, Judge S. S. Calhoun, was 
prevailed upon to leave the chair and come to the 
floor of the convention and take part in the de- 
bates in defense of the George plan. He spoke 
with more frankness and candor than any of the 
other speakers. He had nothing to conceal. He 
called attention to the fact that the party of 
which all of the delegates were members had been 
carrjdng elections in the state since 1875 by 
methods that were wholly indefensible, such as 
murder, perjury and fraud. These methods, he 
contended, should be discontinued and wholly 
abandoned, because they were corrupting the 
morals of the people of the state, and yet " white 
supremacy " must be maintained at any cost. 
The rejection of the George plan, he contended, 
would result in the continuance of the methods to 
which he had referred. Pointing dramatically at 
the advocates of the Christman plan, he exclaimed 
that in the event of the adoption of the plan advo- 
cated by them, the blood of every Negro here- 
after killed in an election riot would rest upon 
their shoulders. When the vote was finally 
taken it was found that a majority had voted for 
the questionable George plan, a fact which created 
intense excitement throughout the state. It was 
soon made clear that the constitution would be 
rejected when submitted tc the people for ratifi- 



Mississippi Constitution of 1890 75 

cation. The Democratic press of the state was 
about equally divided for and against it. It was 
estimated that at least forty per cent of the 
Democrats would vote against it, whilst the Re- 
publican vote would be solid against it. But the 
George faction was equal to the occasion. They 
did not intend to allow their work and their heroic 
efforts to be wholly in vain. When the fact was 
made plain to them that the constitution as thus 
framed would be rejected by the voters, they 
coolly decided that the dear people should not be 
allowed to pass judgment upon it, hence the con- 
vention that framed it declared it ratified and by 
ordinance fixed the date when it should go into 
effect. This was in the fall of 1890. Since that 
time the people of that unfortunate state have 
been living under a constitution which they had 
no voice in making and which they would have 
rejected had the privilege been given them to pass 
judgment upon it. But this high-handed proce- 
dure will, no doubt, be justified by Mr. Rhodes 
upon the ground that, from his point of view, it 
was a completion of the restoration of home rule 
in that state. 

I cannot close this chapter without giving ex- 
pression to the hope that a fair, just and impartial 
historian will some day write a history covering 
the Reconstruction period, in which an accurate 
account, based upon the actual facts of what took 
place at that time, will be given, instead of a 



76 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

compilation of untrue, unreliable and grossly- 
exaggerated statements taken from political cam- 
paign literature. 

The following chapter is the answer to the 
foregoing, written by an " expert " selected by 
Mr. Rhodes for that purpose. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Some Comments on the Article by John R. 

Lynch on Some Historical Errors of 

James Ford Rhodes 

An obvious general comment on the article is 
that if the Reconstruction period throughout the 
South and in Mississippi in particular was engi- 
neered and controlled by men of such high charac- 
ter as Mr, Lynch records, why should the acts 
accredited to them have been of such a low 
character? It is not enough to say that there 
were " mistakes "; the measures were too numer- 
ous and systematic for this. It is to be noticed 
that Mr. Lynch does not attempt to controvert 
statements of events in Mississippi, with one or 
two exceptions to be considered below. To 
attempt to review the conclusions to which Mr. 
Lynch takes exception would involve a review of 
too great a mass of evidence. The web of Recon- 
struction is such a tangled one, that even if one 
has carefully considered a large part of the great 
bulk of primary material on the subject, generaliza- 
tions on the period must still be accepted cau- 
tiously. This much may be said: Mr. Rhodes's 
conclusions are in harmony with those of the 
other trained historical students who have de- 



78 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

voted time to a careful study of this period. Mr. 
Lynch's racial bias, the fact that he was an active 
participant in the events, and finally that his 
judgments are based on his own experiences and 
not on a close study of a far wider field of material, 
make whatever he writes of value as source 
material, but at the same time mitigate against 
its value as an impartial opinion. This is espe- 
cially evident from the fact that he makes no 
attempt either in the article or in his book to 
substantiate his statements by such reference 
to his authorities as modern historiography 
demands. His authority is, of course, himself and 
his recollections, and the recognition of the treach- 
ery of memory is a first fundamental in historical 
work. 

Page 347. Taking up some of Mr. Lynch's 
statements: He speaks of thousands of white 
men who were identified with the Republican 
party in the South in Reconstruction time. A 
comparison of census and election statistics do 
not give support to this fact; and though such 
figures are far from exact, they give a basis for 
generalizing superior to that of any personal 
recollection, or, indeed, of anything short of a 
general agreement of contemporary statements 
to the contrary. No such agreement exists so 
far as I have been able to search. In Tennessee, 
North Carolina, Arkansas, and to less extent in 
Virginia and Texas, there were a considerable 



Comments on Article hy John R. Lynch 79 

number of white Republicans; but in the other 
Southern states in no election between 1868 and 
1872 did the Republican vote equal the census 
figures for Negroes of voting age in 1870. The 
nearest approach to this was in South Carolina in 
1870, when the Republican vote for governor was 
85,000 and the Negroes of voting age 85,400. 
In Mississippi the nearest approach was in the 
vote for Grant in 1872, when there were 82,000 
votes against the census figures of 90,000. The 
machinery for getting out the Negro vote, and it 
was Republican machinery, was such as to permit 
the assumption that an unusually large percent- 
age of the Negroes voted at the elections. 

Page 349. Mr. Lynch speaks of Dent as a 
Democrat carpetbagger, but he was scarcely 
that. Though supported by the Democrats he 
was nominated by a faction of Republicans; 
moreover, he was a Missourian by birth, had 
family connections in Mississippi, and had while 
living in California married the daughter of a 
prominent Mississippian. He was scarcely a 
typical carpetbagger. That there should have 
been a split in the Republican party of the state 
so early is not a very good argument for the 
character of the leaders or of the measures they 
endorsed. 

Page 349. Of the high hopes of such men as 
Alcorn there can be no doubt; but scarcely less 
doubtful was the failure to realize their hopes. 



80 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

Alcorn himself favored Negro disfranchisement in 
1890. 

Page 350. Judges Peyton and Tarbell, a car- 
petbagger, were Republicans, but Simrall is 
generally classed as a Democrat. He was chair- 
man of the state legislative committee that re- 
ported in favor of rejecting the 14th Amendment. 
Riley classes him as a Democrat, as does Garner, 
though Mayes calls him a moderate Republican, 
of the same class as Dent. Tarbell seems to have 
been a good judge. Garner is luke-warm in his 
appreciation, but Lamar said that " his decisions 
attest his extraordinary ability and industry." 
All commend his uprightness. Tarbell in 1887 
called himself a conservative carpetbagger, one 
who found himself in the minority. He said that 
the Republican party in Mississippi collapsed 
through its own weakness; having devised a 
constitution in which " there was much to praise 
and to be proud of, and little to condemn," the 
party gave birth to legislation of which " this 
criticism is, in a measiu-e, reversed."^ The judi- 
ciary was the best department of government 
under Reconstruction in Mississippi. 

Page 354- Ignorant Negro office-holders. All 
that I find as to Evans, except Garner's statement 
of "it was alleged," is in an account of Recon- 
struction in De Soto County, written by I. C. 
Nichols in the publications of the Miss. Soc, 

J Mag. of Am. Hbtory XXVIII, 424. 



Comments on Article hy John R. Lynch 81 

XI, 307. He does not say that Evans could not 
read or write, but that his " bondsmen really 
administered his affairs and ran his office." At 
one time there was a charge of defalcation against 
him, but nothing specific, and Nichols concludes 
that nothing really was wrong. After this some 
changes were made in his bondsmen and " R. R. 
West was put in charge of the office and became 
sheriff in all but name." West was, perhaps, one 
of the " honest, efficient, and capable assistants." 
Evans had been a slave. In Washington County 
there was also a Negro sheriff,' Winslow by name. 
Mr. Lynch does not mention him, but according 
to the testimony of H. B. Putnam, a carpet- 
bagger, Winslow was " nominally " sheriff, but 
his bondsmen ran the office; the sheriff, though 
he could read and write, was " incompetent to 
take charge of his office," which was worth 
$10,000 or $15,000 a year legitimately, and, ac- 
cording to a white Democrat, about $100,000 by 
other means.^ Scott of Issaquena, whom Mr. 
Lynch mentions, testified before the Boutwell 
committee, and so far as can be judged by that 
testimony he was a man of fair intelligence, though, 
according to the testimony of one of his own race, 
not endowed with rash courage.^ The testimony 
of another carpetbagger, with reference to Holmes 
County, is interesting, though it does not show 
whether the sheriff-elect was white or black. He 

* BoutweU Report, 1446, 1470. » Ibid, 608. 



82 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

was probably not Sumner, as this man never 
served in the office. This carpetbagger said 
that the sheriff of the county having died and this 
man elected to fill the vacancy, the successor 
arranged to have the witness assist in making the 
bond. " Other gentlemen hesitated to go on the 
bond unless I would go there and be responsible 
for the running of the office." The man was 
prevented from taking office so nothing* came of 
the arrangement. On the whole, such first-class 
material as I have been able to find does not uphold 
Garner entirely in his estimate of this class of 
officials, especially as to his footnote statement 
about their dishonesty; neither does it give the 
impression that they were worthy, as a whole, of 
the important positions they occupied. If Evans, 
as described by Rhodes, following Garner, was 
not typical, neither was Bruce. 

Page 360. The point Mr. Lynch makes about 
the defalcation of Hemingway is an interesting 
one, and one that is evidently carefully kept in 
the background by the local writers. 

Page 361. Mr. Lynch gives figures for 1875 
and 1907 on financial matters, and on the basis of 
these claims that the profligacy of Reconstruction 
finances is not proven. The manifest unfairness 
of taking figures for 1907 may be passed over; 
but the necessary basis of comparison must be 
wider than this. Nor do his conclusions agree 

« Ibid, 580. 



Comments on Article hy John R. Lynch 83 

with any others that I have seen, nor, which is 
more important, with other statistics. Both 
those of the census or those given annually by 
Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia lead to other 
conclusions. Just as an illustration of what is 
said on the other side, take this statement, which 
seems to be that of the land tax. This was 1 
mill in 1869, 5 mills in 1870, 4 mills in 1871, 8i 
mills in 1872, 12i mills in 1873, 14 mills in 1874, 
9t mills in 1875, 6j mills in 1876, 6i mills in 1877, 
3i mills in 1878. Another point that should be 
considered is that Mr. Lynch confines his figures 
to state finances; while it was for local finances 
that the Reconstruction government of Missis- 
sippi is most severely condemned. 

Page 362. Mr. Lynch is correct in saying that 
the Mississippi senators at the time of the state 
election in 1875 were Alcorn and Bruce. Pease 
had been succeeded by Bruce on March 4 of that 
year. Pease opposed Ames, but he was no longer 
senator. 

Page 362. Mr. Lynch, in upholding the Re- 
construction policy of Stevens and Sumner and 
what he calls their desire to delay restoration, 
seems to have overlooked the fact that the wisest 
of all the Civil War statesmen desired to get the 
states back into the Union before Congress should 
meet in December, 1865. Mr. Lynch is right in 
thinking that the 14th Amendment was essen- 
tially a correct measure, but so also does Mr. 



84 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

Rhodes. The 15th Amendment is quite a differ- 
ent proposition, however. Nor does it follow 
because legislation of some sort might have been 
necessary to enforce the 14th Amendment or to 
take its place when the South refused to adopt it, 
that the Reconstruction Acts were the legitimate 
offspring of that necessity. That the Negro 
soldiers helped to win the war is not proof that 
the war would have failed without them; or that 
the necessary price of their valor was suffrage for 
all the men of their race, the bulk of whom were 
not capable of understanding it; or that such 
suffrage was necessary to the preservation of the 
Union. Oratory, inside or outside of Congress, 
is not historical proof. 

Pages 365, 367. Mr. Lynch's statement that 
the failure of Reconstruction was due to unwise 
judicial interpretation need not be considered. 
It is anachronistic and does not agree with the 
views now generally accepted by historical stu- 
dents. But what he says of the infidelity of 
Waite and Bradley can be refuted directly from 
the Supreme Court Reports. As to the appoint- 
ment of these justices, there is no evidence that 
it was because of any specially strong nationalistic 
position on their part. Bradley, if chosen for 
any particular views, got the justiceship because 
of his attitude on legal tender; and the conditions 
under which Waite was appointed do not show up 
any bias on his part. In U. S. v. Reese the court 



Comments on Article by John R. Lynch 85 

stood seven to two; and the dissentients were 
Clifford, a Democrat, and Hunt, appointed by 
Grant. 

In U. S. V. Harris (the Ku Klux decision) Woods 
dehvered the decision. Harlan alone dissented 
and only on the question of jurisdiction. The 
Bench at that time held two judges appointed by 
Lincoln, two by Grant, two by Hayes, one by 
Garfield, and two by Arthur. The Civil Rights 
Cases decision was delivered by Bradley. Har- 
lan was the only dissenter. These were the three 
important Reconstruction decisions during the 
term of Waite and Bradley. All of them were 
delivered after Reconstruction had failed. On 
the other hand, Bradley delivered the opinion in 
ex parte Siebold, in which the federal election 
laws were upheld, and Field and Clifford were the 
only ones who disagreed with it. 

The following is the author's reply to the 
expert's answer. 



CHAPTER XV 

Some Historical Errors of James Ford 
Rhodes 

In its issue of October, 1917, " The Journal of 
Negro History " published in part an article by 
me, pointing out some of the historical errors 
made by Mr. Rhodes in his " History of the 
United States from the Compromise of 1850 to 
the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South 
in 1877." 

Since it appears that Mr. Rhodes had no per- 
sonal knowledge of the important historical events 
referred to, he sent a copy of the journal contain- 
ing the article to a friend who was presumed to 
be better informed along those hues, to whom 
Mr. Rhodes refers as an expert, with the request 
that he make a careful examination of the article 
and write a reply to the same, or perhaps to make 
such comments as would furnish Mr. Rhodes 
with the information desired. I have been 
favored through a mutual friend with a copy of 
that reply, which is now before me. 

In an effort to weaken the force of what I have 
written, this expert, in his opening generahzation, 
made several observations which may be classed 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 87 

under three different heads. First: If the white 
men referred to by me were of such a high charac- 
ter, why should the acts accredited to them have 
been of such a low character? 

Second: That I am influenced in what I write 
about that period by racial bias and the fact that 
I was an active participant in the events referred 
to. 

Third: That what I write is based upon my 
own experience and memory, much of which is 
likely to be inaccurate through the treachery of 
memory, the same not being fortified by refer- 
ences to other historical works. 

In the first place, I frankly confess that what I 
have written and shall write in defense of the 
Reconstruction governments at the South has 
been and will be of very little value if it were 
conceded that the acts accredited to the men to 
whom I have referred were of a low character. 
That is the very point upon which the public has 
been misinformed, misled and deceived. I do 
not hesitate to assert that the Southern recon- 
structed governments were the best governments 
those states ever had before or have ever had 
since, statements and allegations made by Mr. 
Rhodes and some other historical writers to the 
contrary notwithstanding. It is not claimed 
that they were perfect, but they were a decided 
improvement on those they succeeded, and they 
were superior in every way to those which are 



88 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

representative of what Mr. Rhodes is pleased to 
term the restoration of home rule. They were 
the first and only governments in that section 
that were based upon the consent of the governed. 
If Mr. Rhodes honestly believed that what he 
wrote in condemnation and denunciation of those 
governments was based upon authenticated facts, 
then the most charitable view that can be taken 
in his case is that he, like thousands of others, is 
simply an innocent victim of a gross deception. 

Whether or not I am influenced by racial ties 
or partisan bias in what I have written and may 
hereafter write, I am willing to allow my readers 
to decide. I am sure they have not failed to see 
from what I have thus far written that the con- 
trolling purpose with me is to give actual facts, 
free from racial partiality or partisan bias. The 
idea that I have endeavored to keep in mind is, 
that what the readers and students of American 
history desire to know is the unbiased truth about 
the important events of the period in question, 
and not the judgment and opinions of the person 
or persons by whom they are recorded. 

In the third place, the statement that the value 
of what I have written is impaired because what 
is said about the important events of the period 
in question is based, in the main, upon my own 
knowledge and experience, must impress the 
intelligent reader as strange and unusual. 

With reference to the period under considera- 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 89 

tion, the difference between what I have written 
and what has been written by Mr. Rhodes and 
some other historical writers is what the lawyers 
would call the difference between primary and 
secondary evidence. The primary is always 
considered the best evidence, the secondary to be 
used only when the primary cannot be obtained. 
And yet what I have written is not based wholly 
upon memory. Where it is I have referred to 
distinguished persons and important events and 
occurrences which are not hkely to be confused 
through the treachery of memory. The statisti- 
cal information I have given is not from memory, 
but from the files of the official records, accessible 
to the public. But it appears that Mr. Rhodes 
and some other historical writers used only such 
parts of the official records as answered the pur- 
pose they seem to have had in view. This is 
virtually admitted by Mr. Rhodes's expert, in 
stating that " the point Mr. Lynch makes about 
the defalcation of Hemingway is an interesting 
one, and one that is evidently carefully kept in 
the background by the local writers." Yes, they 
not only kept that point in the background, but 
all other points that were not in harmony with 
the purpose they seem to have had in mind, 
which is in effect one of misrepresentation. 

The reader will not fail to see that Mr. Rhodes's 
expert passed over in silence a number of impor- 
tant points in my article. In some of those 



90 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

alluded to by him he frankly admitted that I am 
right, as in the case of Treasurer Hemingway. In 
the case of Mr. Evans, the colored sheriff of De 
Soto County, he relies upon an ex parte statement 
written by a Mr. Nichols of that county, evidently 
a partisan, who makes an effort to paint Mr. 
Evans in as unfavorable a light as possible, and 
yet he fails to confirm the allegation that Mr. 
Evans could neither read nor write, but concludes 
his communication with the declaration " that 
nothing really was wrong." From what is writ- 
ten by Mr. Rhodes's expert I find that Garner is 
the one from whom Mr. Rhodes obtained most of 
his misinformation. In speaking of the colored 
sheriffs in a general way Mr. Rhodes's expert was 
frank enough to say: " On the whole, such first- 
hand material as I have been able to find does 
not uphold Garner entirely in his estimate of this 
class of officials, especially as to his footnote 
statement about their dishonesty." This bears 
out the statement made by me that if Mr. Rhodes 
had desired to be fair and impartial he would 
have taken all the colored sheriffs into considera- 
tion and would have drawn an average, which 
would have shown that in point of intelligence, 
capacity and honesty they compared favorably 
with the whites. 

The assertion made by me that the Republican 
party in Mississippi included in its membership 
many of the best and most substantial white men 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 91 

in that state is disputed, because the Repubhcan 
vote in the state at the presidential election of 
1872 happened to be only a few thousand less 
than the number of colored men in the state of 
voting age, as shown by the census of 1870. It is 
therefore assumed that very few, if any, white 
men voted the Republican ticket at that election. 
To ascertain the voting strength of a political 
party, census figures cannot be relied upon with 
any degree of certainty, but since Mr. Rhodes's 
expert seems to think otherwise I am perfectly 
willing to accept them in this instance for what 
they may be worth. The number of colored men 
of voting age in the state at that time, as shown 
by the census of 1870, was 88,850; whites 76,909; 
colored majority, 11,941, and yet the Republican 
majority in 1872 was 34,887. If the voting 
strength of the two parties were in proportion to 
the number of colored and white men in the 
state, as this expert would have the public be- 
lieve, and the percentage of colored and white 
men who voted was about the same, which can 
be safely assumed, the Republican majority in 
that case could not have been more than 12,000, 
whereas it was nearly three times that number. 
Assuming that the Republican and Democratic 
vote combined comprised the whole number that 
voted at that election, the total number of votes 
polled was 129,463, which was 36,296 less than 
the number of voters in the state. Of the 36,296 



92 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

that did not vote, I estimate that at least 16,000 
of them were white men. Subtract the 16,000 
from the 76,909 white voters and it will be seen 
that the number of white men that voted at that 
election was 60,909, and yet the Democratic vote 
was 47,288, which was 13,621 less than the num- 
ber of white men that voted. My own estimate 
is that of the 82,175 Republican votes, 61,266 
were cast by colored men and 20,909 by white 
men. Of the 47,288 Democratic votes, 40,000 
were cast by white men and 7,288 by colored men. 
From the above estimate it will be seen that 
more than one third of the white men who voted 
at that election voted the Republican ticket. 
This estimate is strengthened when the result of 
the election in the different counties is taken into 
consideration. The Republicans not only carried 
every county in which the colored voters had a 
majority, but also a number of counties in which 
the whites were in the majority. The majority 
by which the state was carried by Alcorn in 1869 
was about the same as that by which it was carried 
by Grant in 1872. Alcorn not only carried a 
number of white counties, but ten of them elected 
Republicans to the legislature, two of them, 
Lawrence and Marion, elected each a colored 
member. The ten counties were Pike, Lawrence, 
Marion, Jackson, Jasper, Clark, Lee, Leak, 
Lafayette and Attala. Judge Green C. Chandler, 
afterwards a judge of the circuit court and later 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 93 

U. S. district attorney, was elected from Clark, 
Hon. H. W. Warren, who succeeded Judge Frank- 
lin as Speaker of the House, was elected from 
Leak, Judge Jason Niles and Hon. E. Boyd, both 
able and brilliant lawyers, were elected from 
Attala. Judge Niles was afterwards appointed 
a judge of the circuit court and later served as a 
Republican member of Congress. 

In the opinion of this expert, Judge Dent, the 
Democratic candidate for governor in 1869 was 
scarcely a typical carpetbagger, because he was 
born in Missouri and had family connections in 
Mississippi. Still, if he were not a typical carpet- 
bagger, then we had none in the state, because the 
designation included all those that settled in the 
state after the war was over. Judge Dent was 
one of that number. But I may be able to give 
Mr. Rhodes what was believed to be the principal 
reason that influenced the Democrats to support 
Judge Dent. He was President Grant's brother- 
in-law, hence it was hoped and beheved that in 
this case family ties would prove to be stronger 
than party ties and that the national administra- 
tion would support Dent instead of Alcorn, the 
ex-Confederate. In this case they were mis- 
taken. Grant had been elected as a Republican, 
and he could not be induced to throw the weight 
of his influence against his own party, even in a 
state election, merely to contribute to the realiza- 
tion of the personal ambition of his wife's brother. 



94! Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

It is true that a few men who called themselves 
Republicans also supported Judge Dent, but the 
result of the election was conclusive evidence 
that the so-called split in the party was not at 
all serious. 

Speaking of the three Supreme Court judges, 
the expert admits that Peyton and Tarbell were 
Republicans, but Simrall, he claims, is generally 
classed as a Democrat. In support of this asser- 
tion attention is called to the fact, among others, 
that he was chairman of the state legislative com- 
mittee that reported in favor of rejecting the 14th 
Amendment. But that was before the passage 
of the Reconstruction Acts and before the Repub- 
lican party in the state was organized. Judge 
Simrall joined the Republican party in 1868 or 
1869. What I asserted, and now repeat, is that 
he was a Republican when he was made a justice 
of the state supreme court in 1870. Even if he, 
like thousands of others, had rejoined the Demo- 
cratic party, that would not disprove my assertion 
that he was a Republican while he was on the 
bench. But it appears that he was not one of 
those who rejoined the Democrats, but remained 
a Republican to the day of his death. In 1884, 
nine years after the redemption, he canvassed the 
state for Blaine and Logan, Republican candi- 
dates for president and vice-president. In 1890 
the Democrats of Warren County, in selecting 
suitable persons to represent that important 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 95 

county in the state constitutional convention, 
held in the fall of that year, were anxious to have 
the benefit of the knowledge, ability and experi- 
ence of Judge Simrall. They took the liberty of 
placing his name on their ticket, to which it 
appears he made no objection, and in that way 
he was elected a delegate to the convention. 
But did this make him a Democrat? I am sure 
both Mr. Rhodes and his expert will allow Judge 
Simrall to answer that question for himself, and 
that they will accept his answer as conclusive on 
that point. For his answer they are respectfully 
referred to page 704 of the official journal of the 
constitutional convention of 1890. They will 
see that the members of the convention were 
politically classified, each member, of course, 
furnishing the information as to his own party 
affiliations. It will be seen that Judge Simrall is 
classified as a " National Republican." Ex- 
Governor Alcorn was also a member of that 
convention, having been elected from Coahoma 
County in the same way. His political classifica- 
tion is that of " Conservative." So it seems that 
neither Simrall nor Alcorn rejoined the Demo- 
cratic party. Instead, therefore, of Repubficans 
being obliged to utilize Democratic material in 
the selection of Judges, as erroneously stated by 
Mr. Rhodes, it appears that the Democrats were 
obliged to utilize Repubhcan talent, experience 
and ability to assist them in framing a new con- 



96 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

stitution. I am sure that the assertion can be 
safely made that Simrall and Alcorn were not 
among the " lovers of good government " who 
rejoiced " at the redemption of Mississippi," 
through the employment of means that Mr. 
Rhodes so much regretted. 

" The judiciary," the expert declares, " was 
the best department of government under Re- 
construction in Mississippi," and yet the judges 
were all appointed by the Governor, by and with 
the advice and consent of the Senate. It goes 
without saying that if the Governor's appointees 
were good, the appointing power was equally 
good. The expert virtually admits that there 
was no justification for the declaration that " all 
lovers of good government must rejoice at the 
redemption of Mississippi," when he used the 
following language: " Mr. Lynch confines his 
figures to state finances; while it was for local 
finances that the Reconstruction government of 
Mississippi is most severely condemned." In 
other words, there was nothing wrong with the 
state administration; it was the local county and 
municipal governments that were bad. And 
yet, a fair and impartial investigation will reveal 
the fact that there is no more foundation for this 
allegation than for those about the state govern- 
ment. It is admitted that during the early part 
of Reconstruction the local tax rate was high, 
the reasons for which are fully explained in " The 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 97 

Facts of Reconstruction." Such an investiga- 
tion would show that the charges of extravagance, 
recklessness and maladministration so generally 
made about the administration of county and 
municipal affairs were grossly exaggerated and 
nearly if not all of them wholly untrue. In 
fact the expert flatly contradicts himself on this 
point, because he admits that the evidence does 
not support the charge of dishonesty in the case 
of the colored sheriffs, and yet the sheriff is the 
principal officer in the administration of the 
county government. 

With reference to the financial affairs of the 
state the expert makes no effort to disprove a 
single statement of mine. He simply makes the 
broad assertion that my conclusions do not agree 
with other statistics, and yet he fails to produce 
the statistics with which they do not agree. To 
illustrate his point he calls attention to the differ- 
ent rates of taxation covering a period of about 
ten years, which, if true, is of no importance in 
this connection, because the same has no bearing 
upon the material point now under considera- 
tion. The tax rate is always determined by the 
amount of money needed to meet the obligations 
of the state, predicated upon the assessed value of 
taxable property. Changes in the tax rate, 
therefore, are likely to be of frequent occurrence. 
The pertinent point at issue is the volume of 
money paid into the treasury and the disposition 



98 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

made of it. In this connection a slight amphfica- 
tion of the figures already given will not be in- 
appropriate. In 1875, the last year of RepubU- 
can rule and the year the state was redeemed, the 
total receipts from all sources amounted to 
$1,801,129.12. Disbursements, same year, $1,- 
430,192.83, or $370,936.29 less than received. In 
1907 the receipts from all sources amounted to 
$3,391,127.15. Disbursements, same year, $3,- 
730,343.29, or $339,216.14 more than was received; 
and $2,300,150.46 more than was paid out in 
1875. In fact, the financial condition of the state 
during several years was such that the legislature 
was obliged to authorize the issuance of bonds 
upon which to borrow money to meet current 
demands, thus adding materially to the bonded 
debt of the state. Can anything more inex- 
cusable and indefensible than this be imagined? 
That any one of the reconstructed governments 
could possibly have been guilty of such malad- 
ministration as this is inconceivable. And yet, 
this administration typifies what Mr. Rhodes is 
pleased to term the restoration of home rule at 
the South, for which all lovers of good government 
should rejoice. 

The expert admits that I am right in what was 
said about Senators Alcorn and Bruce, but asserts 
that Senator Pease, Mr. Bruce's immediate prede- 
cessor, was opposed to Ames. This is another 
assertion that is not in harmony with the truth. 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 99 

Ames was a United States senator when he was 
elected governor; when he resigned the senator- 
ship to become governor there remained about 
fourteen months of his senatorial term. The 
duty, therefore, devolved upon the legislature 
elected in 1873, at the same time Senator Ames 
was elected governor; of electing a senator for the 
full term and also for the unexpired term. Bruce, 
an Ames man, was elected for the full term, and 
Pease, also an Ames man, was elected for the unex- 
pired term. If Pease had been opposed to Ames 
he could not have been elected to the senate by 
that legislature, for it was unquestionably an 
Ames legislature. It is true Pease was defeated 
for renomination for state superintendent of 
education by the convention that nominated 
Ames, still he loyally supported the ticket, and 
after the election he was looked upon as one of 
the friends and supporters of Ames's administra- 
tion, and as such, and for that reason, he was 
elected one of the administration senators. I 
was a member of Congress at that time and 
therefore had occasion frequently to confer with 
Senator Pease, as the senatorial representative 
of the state and national administrations. If 
Senator Pease was opposed to Ames, I am sure 
that both Mr. Rhodes and his expert will admit 
I would have known it; and yet I do not hesitate 
to say that Senator Pease never did by word, 
act or deed cause me to entertain the sUghtest 



100 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

suspicion that he was not a loyal friend and 
supporter of the Ames administration. 

In regard to the decisions of the Supreme Court, 
the expert simply makes the declaration that my 
statement that the failure of Reconstruction 
was due to unwise judicial interpretation, need 
not be considered. Of course not, at least by 
him. In the first place it is not true that I ad- 
mitted that Reconstruction was a failure. On 
the contrary, those who will carefully read what 
I have written will not fail to see that my con- 
tention is that in its important and essential 
particulars that policy was a great and brilliant 
success; also that I instanced the ratification of 
the 14th and 15th Amendments, neither of which 
could have otherwise been ratified, as a vindica- 
tion of the wisdom of that legislation, even if 
nothing else had resulted from it. It is admitted 
that some of the friends and supporters of the 
Congressional plan of Reconstruction have been 
disappointed because those governments did not 
and could not stand the test of time. To this 
extent and for this reason some persons claim 
that the policy was a failure. I am not of that 
number, for reasons which the readers of the 
article referred to will see. But the inability of 
those governments to stand the test of time I 
accounted for under three heads, one of which 
was several unfortunate decisions rendered by the 
Supreme Court, the result, in my opinion, of two 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 101 

unfortunate appointments made by President 
Grant in the persons of Chief Justice Waite and 
Associate Justice Bradley. I do not assert that 
those two Judges, or any others for that matter, 
were appointed with reference to their attitude 
upon any pubhc question, still I am satisfied that 
they were believed to be in accord with the other 
leaders and constitutional lawyers in the Repub- 
lican party in their construction of the 14th 
Amendment. The constitutional warrant for the 
Civil Rights Bill is the clause which declares 
that " No state shall make or enforce any law 
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities 
of citizens of the United States." It was there- 
fore held that any law or ordinance which pro- 
vided for, recognized or sanctioned separate 
accommodations for the two races in the exercise 
and enjoyment of the rights and privileges that 
are supposed to be common to all classes of per- 
sons would be a violation of this provision of the 
14th Amendment; and since Congress was author- 
ized to enforce the Amendment, affirmative legis- 
lation for the enforcement of that provision was 
held to be thus warranted. This view was held 
by such able and brilliant constitutional lawyers 
as Edmunds and Conkling in the Senate* and 
Butler, George F. Hoar and E. Rockwood Hoar, 
Lyman Tremaine, Garfield and Wilson in the 
House. Senator Carpenter was the only Repub- 
lican lawyer of any note that took a different view 



102 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

of the matter. While he believed the whole bill 
was unconstitutional, the section prohibiting race 
discrimination in the selection of jurors in state 
courts he believed to be especially obnoxious to 
the constitution. He declared that if that sec- 
tion could stand the test of a judicial decision all 
the others could and should, and yet the Court, 
through a decision handed down by Mr. Justice 
Strong, affirmed the constitutionality of that 
section; but in a decision handed down by Mr. 
Justice Bradley the section providing for equal 
accommodations in hotels, inns and places of 
amusement was declared unconstitutional except 
in the District of Columbia and the territories. 
In several subsequent decisions, handed down in 
the main by Chief Justice Waite, some of the most 
vital and important sections of the enforcement 
acts, especially those having for their object the 
protection of individual citizens against domestic 
violence through federal machinery when neces- 
sary, were also declared to be unconstitutional 
and void. 

I am of the opinion, shared by many others, 
that if men of the type of Edmunds and Conkling 
had been appointed Supreme Court Justices in- 
stead of Waite and Bradley, the rulings of the 
Court in the important cases referred to might 
have been different. The unfortunate thing 
about those decisions is the wide scope of authority 
thus conceded to the states. In other words, they 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 103 

amount to a judicial recognition of the dangerous 
doctrine of States Rights — a doctrine which has 
been the source and the cause of most of our 
domestic troubles and misfortunes since those 
decisions were rendered. But for those unfortu- 
nate decisions our country would not be cursed 
and disgraced today by lynch law and other 
forms of lawlessness and racial proscription and 
discrimination. But for those unfortunate deci- 
sions, lynching could have been, and I am sure 
would have been, held to be an offense against 
the peace and dignity of the United States as 
well as the state. Consequently, the criminals 
could be, and in most cases would be, prosecuted 
in the federal courts and through federal machin- 
ery, as was done in the case of many of the leaders 
of that secret criminal organization called the 
Ku Klux Klan. But this took place before the 
decisions referred to were rendered. The Court 
has also decided that a state law providing for 
separate accommodations for white and colored 
people on railroad trains, at least for passengers 
whose journey begins and ends in the same state, 
is not an abridgement in violation of the Consti- 
tution, provided the accommodations for the two 
races are exactly equal, which means that the 
vaUdity even of those laws will not be affirmed 
whenever it can be shown that the accommoda- 
tions are not equal, which can be very easily 
done. Equal separate accommodations is both 



104 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

a physical and a financial impossibility. It is 
simply impossible for a railroad company to 
provide the same accommodations for one colored 
passenger that it provides for one hundred whites. 
If, then, a colored passenger cannot occupy a 
seat or a sleeping berth in a car in which white 
persons may be passengers, this will not only be 
an abridgement, but, in some cases, an absolute 
denial, of such accommodations. The ultimate 
nulhfication of such imfair, unjust and unreason- 
able laws must necessarily follow. 

In spite of the unfavorable rulings of the Court, 
as above noted, that tribunal as at present con- 
stituted has rendered several very important 
decisions which have given the friends of national 
supremacy and equal rights much hope and en- 
couragement. The most important of these is 
the one declaring unconstitutional and void the 
ordinances providing for the segregation of the 
races in the purchase and occupation of property 
for residential purposes in several cities. The 
decision in this case was broad, comprehensive 
and far-reaching. This important, fair and equi- 
table decision has given the colored American new 
hope and new inspiration. It has strengthened 
and intensified his loyalty and devotion to his 
country, his government, its flag and its institu- 
tions. It makes him feel that with all of its 
faults and shortcomings, our form of government 
is superior to, and better than, that of any other, 



Errors of James Ford Rhodes 105 

and that a few more decisions along the Hne of this 
one, which I hope and beUeve may be safely 
anticipated, every justifiable cause of complaint 
on the part of the colored American will have been 
removed, because the evils resulting from the 
unfavorable and unfortunate rulings above noted 
will have been remedied and cured. Our type of 
democracy will then be what it now purports to 
be, the pure and genuine article. This will then 
be in truth and in fact the land of the free and the 
home of the brave. It will then be a typical 
representative of that form of democracy under 
which there can be no slave, no vassal and no peon, 
but everyone will be an equal before the law in 
the exercise and enjoyment of life, liberty and 
property, and in the exercise and enjoyment of 
such public rights and privileges as are, or should 
be, common to all citizens alike, without distinc- 
tion or discrimination based upon differences of 
race, color, nationality or religion. These were 
the aims, objects and purposes the framers of the 
14th Amendment had in view when that Amend- 
ment was drawn, and from present indications it 
seems to be clear that the highest court in the 
land will not allow the same to be defeated. But 
the most significant point about the segregation 
decision grows out of the fact that the fair, 
reasonable, sound and equitable principles therein 
set forth and clearly enunciated received the 
approbation and endorsement of a unanimous 



106 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

court consisting of nine judges, in which conflict- 
ing and antagonistic pohtical views were presumed 
to be represented. This indicates that the day 
is not far off when the so-called race question will 
cease to be a political factor, and that all political 
parties will recognize merit and not race, fitness 
and not color, experience and not religion, ability 
and not nationality, as the tests by which persons 
must be judged, not only in the administration 
of the government but in the industrial field as 
well. For the accomplishment of these meri- 
torious ends and the attainment of these desirable 
purposes, men of the type of James Ford Rhodes 
should give their aid, support and influence, 
instead of allowing these to be used in the interests 
of that small class of unpatriotic Americans who 
seek political distinction and official recognition 
at the expense of racial harmony and brotherly 
love. 



CHAPTER XVI 

The purpose of this chapter is to amplify and bring out in 
more detail some of the points touched upon in preceding 
chapters. 

The Presidential Election of 1916 

There were some phases of the presidential 
election of 1916 which should receive the careful 
consideration and serious reflection of the students 
of American history, especially those who are 
believers in a genuine Republican form of govern- 
ment. In considering these matters the mind 
should be entirely divested of partisan bias or 
racial prejudice; the aim and purpose should be 
to ascertain what effect these matters may have 
upon the stability and perpetuity of our Republi- 
can institutions. 

The presidential election of 1916 was the first 
one since 1884 when the vote of the states com- 
posing what is left of the " solid South " proved 
to be a deciding factor. In all presidential 
elections since 1884 and until 1916 the vote of the 
states above referred to would not have changed 
the result one way or the other. But in 1916 the 
case was different. 

It is hoped that the reader will not suspect that 
the author is actuated or influenced either by 



108 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

partisan bias or racial partiality in making the 
statement based upon his personal knowledge of 
political conditions as they then existed, that 
President Wilson was legally and constitution- 
ally, but not fairly and honestly, re-elected. In 
other words, he was duly elected according to the 
forms of law, the observance and enforcement of 
which are essential to the maintenance of law and 
order and to avoid and prevent revolution, 
anarchy and chaos. But it sometimes happens 
that, through the application and enforcement of 
these essential and necessary forms, the choice of 
a majority of those who are legally entitled to 
participate in the selection of public officials is 
defeated. Such was the case in 1916. Accord- 
ing to the political situation at that time there 
were at least three states at the South, Missis- 
sippi, Louisiana and South Carolina, which 
would have been as reliably Republican as the 
states of Pennsylvania and Vermont, but for the 
suppression of the colored vote in those states, 
through an evasion or violation of the Federal 
Constitution. It will be seen, therefore, that, 
but for the suppression of the colored vote at the 
South, Hughes instead of Wilson would have 
been elected President in 1916. But this would 
have meant " Negro domination," because the 
choice of a majority of the white voters would 
have been defeated by the votes of colored men. 
We would not only have had " Negro domina- 



Presidential Election of 1916 109 

tion " in the executive but also in the legislative 
department of the government, because by the 
same vote the party of which Judge Hughes was 
the representative would have had a majority in 
both branches of the legislative department. 
This would not only have been true of the Con- 
gress that was elected at that time but of several 
preceding Congresses, for there are not less than 
six members of the Senate and thirty of the House 
that would be of a different political classification 
but for the suppression of the colored vote at the 
South. It will thus be seen that if that vote had 
not been suppressed in 1916 we would have 
had " Negro domination " in both the execu- 
tive and legislative departments of the national 
government, although no colored man may have 
been officially identified with either of those 
departments. 

It does not necessarily follow that the political 
party to which a majority of the colored voters 
belong is, in every case, the beneficiary when the 
colored vote proves to be a deciding factor in a 
closely contested election. In the presidential 
election of 1884, for instance, Mr. Cleveland, the 
Democratic candidate for President of the United 
States, polled a very small percentage of the 
colored vote in the state of New York, but the 
fact was developed that the plurality by which 
he carried that important and pivotal state was 
considerably less than the number of colored men 



110 Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes 

who voted for him. If, therefore, the colored 
men, or a majority of them, who voted for Mr. 
Cleveland in New York at that time had voted 
against him he would have lost the state and 
consequently the presidency of the United States. 
But there seems to have been no public appre- 
hension of " Negro domination " as a result of 
that election, although the colored vote proved to 
be a deciding factor. 

In what is written in this chapter no reflection 
upon President Wilson is meant or intended. He 
was twice elected to the Presidency of the United 
States, and on each occasion his election was due 
to a combination of circumstances for the exis- 
tence of which he was in no sense responsible. 
His first election, 1912, was due to a serious split 
in the Repubhcan party. If in the election of 
presidential electors a majority instead of a 
plurality had been required to elect, Mr. Wilson 
would not have been elected. He was, therefore, 
a minority candidate, but the same was true in 
the first election of Mr. Lincoln, who proved to 
be one of the best presidents the country has 
ever had. The election of 1912, therefore, was 
not only valid and constitutional, but since the 
vote of the South was not a deciding factor, its 
fairness cannot very well be questioned. 

In 1916 President Wilson was the beneficiary 
of the suppression of the colored vote at the 
South through the apphcation and enforcement 



Presidential Election of 1916 111 

of methods which popular sentiment of the 
country, North as well as South, had, through a 
misapprehension of the facts, excused, tolerated 
and acquiesced in. While, therefore, the legality 
of the election cannot and should not be ques- 
tioned, the reader cannot fail to see that there 
are some grave and complicated questions in- 
volved, which, if not corrected, are calculated to 
weaken and impair, if not to undermine and 
destroy, the fundamental principle and doctrine 
upon which our system of government is based. 



INDEX 



Ackerman, x. 

Alcorn, J. L., 5, 6, 14, 28, 79, 

80, 83, 92, 93, 95. 
Anderson, 4. 
Ames, Adalbert, 6, 27, 28, 98, 

99. 
Aristocracy, xix, 4, 5. 
Appomattox, 43. 
Arthur, President, 85. 

B 

Bruce, Hon. B. K., ix, 19, 20, 

28, 82, 83, 98, 99. 
Brown, Ex-Governor, 4. 
Bullock, Ex-Governor, 4. 
Beauregard, General, 4. 
Bill, Civil Rights, 20, 41, 42, 

101. 
Buchanan, Hon. G. M., 24, 25. 
Bradley, Judge, 41, 42, 43, 84, 

101. 
Blaine, James G., 56, 94. 
Boyd, Hon. E., 93. 
Butler, Gen. B. F., 101. 
Borah, Senator, 54. 

C 

Chestnutt, C. W., xii. 
Compton, W. M., 6. 
Cassidy, Judge Hiram, St., 7. 
Cassidy, Judge Hiram, Jr., 7. 
Chandler, Judge, 7, 92. 
Crain, Judge, 7. 
Carpenter, J. N., 7. 
Cleveland, President, 12, 109. 
Cain, Congressman, 20. 
Cheatham, Congressman, 20. 
Court, U. S. Supreme, 43, 46, 

100. 
Clause, Understanding, 75. 
Christman, Judge, 73. 
Calhoun, Judge S. S., 74. 



Conkling, Senator, 101, 102. 
Carpenter, Senator, 101. 
Civil Rights BiU, 20, 41, 42, 
101. 

D 

Dent, Judge Louis, 5, 79, 80, 

93, 94. 
Deason, J. B., 6. 
Davis, Judge, 7. 
Decision, Dred Scott, 33. 
Decisions, Supreme Court, 41, 

70, 100. 



Evans, Rev. J. J., 14, 15, 16, 

17, 80, 81, 82, 90. 
EUiott, Congressman, 20. 
Edmunds, Senator, 101, 102. 



" Facts of Reconstruction," 25, 

26, 27, 28. 
Fulkerson, 4. 
Flournoy, Hon. R. W., 5. 
Frank, Leo, 44, 45. 
Federal Elections Bill, 56. 
Frankhn, Judge F. E., 93. 



Grant, President, 9, 37, 41, 85, 

93, 101. 
Garfield, President, 85, 101. 
George, Hon. J. Z., 72, 73, 74, 

75. 
Garner, 80, 82, 90. 

H 

Hunt, 4. 

Hayes, President R. B., 32, 46, 

85. 
Hamhn, Frank, xiii. 
Hill, Ben, 4. 
Hill, Joshua, 4. 



114 



Index 



Hahn, Ex-Governor, 4. 
Harrison, President, 6. 
Hunt, T. W., 6. 
Hancock, Judge, 7. 
Henderson, Judge, 7. 
HiU, Judge, 7. 
Harney, W. H., 18. 
Hemingway, Wm. L., 23, 24, 

25, 82, 89, 90. 
Holland, Hon. George H., 23. 
Harlan, Justice, 44, 85. 
Hoar, G. F., 101. 
Hoar, E. R., 101. 
Hughes, Judge C. E., 54, 108, 

109. 



Jackson, Clarion, vii. 
Jeffords, Congressman, 5. 
Johnson, President, 30, 32. 
" Journal of Negro History," 
86. 



Key, xi. 

Ku Klux Klan, 37, 38, 41, 103. 



Lee, Gen. R. E., 4. 
Longstreet, General, 4. 
Lamar, Hon. L. Q. C, 5, 56, 

80. 
Lea, Judge Luke, 6. 
Lea, A. M., 6. 
Langston, Congressman, 20. 
Logan, Senator, 94. 
Lincoln, President, 85. 

M 
Myers, George A., xi. 
Mosby, 4. 
Mahone, 4. 
Massey, 4. 

McKee, George C, Congress- 
man, 5. 
MiUsaps, R. W., 6. 
Morphis, Hon. J. L., 7. 
McMillan, Judge, 7. 
McCary, Wm., 17, 18. 



Miller, Congressman, 20. 
Mississippi Constitution, 1890, 

72. 
Mayes, 80. 
MiUsaps, Judge, 7. 

N 
Niles, Judge Jason, 5, 93. 
Niles, Judge H. C, 6. 
" Negro Domination," 52, 53, 

64, 67. 
Nichols, I. C, 80, 81. 

O 

Orr, Ex-Governor, 4. 
Osgood, Judge, 7. 
O'Hara, Congressman, 20. 
OHgarchy, xix, 52, 63. 



Pinchback, Hon. P. S. B., viii, 

ix. 
Parsons, Ex-Governor, 4. 
Paul, 4. 

Powers, Governor, 5, 6, 14. 
Perce, Congressman, 5. 
Peyton, Judge E. G., 6, 80, 94. 
Putnam, H. B., 81. 
Pease, U. S. Senator, 83, 98. 

R 

Revels, Hon. H. R., ix, x, 20. 
Reynolds, Ex-Governor, 4. 
Riddleberger, 4. 
Rainey, Congressman, 20. 
Rapier, Congressman, 20. 
Riley, 80. 



Southern White RepubUcans, 

3. 
Speed, Judge, 5. 
SimraU, Judge H. F., 6, 80, 94, 

95. 
Sessions, Hon. J. F., 7. 
Smyley, Judge, 7. 
Surget, James, 7. 
Scott, H. P., 18, 81. 



Index 



115 



Smalls, Congressman, 20. 
Stephens, Congressman, 20. 
Stevens, Thad., Congressman, 

29, 31, 35, 83. 
Sumner, Sen. Charles, 29, 31, 

35, 83. 
Strong, Justice, 102. 
States Rights, 42, 43, 44, 45, 

46, 54, 103. 
Supreme Court, 43, 46, 100. 



TarbeU, Judge, 5, 6, 80, 94. 
Tribune, Chicago, 36, 51, 52, 

53, 54, 64, 66, 68. 
Taft, President, 54, 63, 67. 
Tremaine, Lyman, 101. 
Tilden, Samuel J., 58. 

U 

" Understanding Clause," 73. 



Vasser, W. H., 6. 



W 



Wickham, 4. 

WeUs, 4. 

Walton, Judge, 7. 

Walker, Judge, 7. 

Wood, Robert H., 18. 

White, Congressman, 20. 

Waite, Chief Justice, 41, 42, 43, 

84, 101. 
Walthal, Hon. E. C, 72. 
West, R. R., 81. 
Winslow, 81. 
Warren, Hon. H. W., 93. 
Wilson, Representative, 101. 
Wilson, President, 108, 110. 
Wright, Judge, ix. 
Woods, Justice, 85. 



L 



